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SCIENCE  AND  > 

CHRISTIAN  TRADITION 


ESSAYS 


BY 

THOMAS  H.   HUXLEY 


NEW   YORK 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

1895 


Authorized  Edition. 


*& 


PREFACE 


"For  close  upon  forty  years  I  have  been  writing  with  one 
purpose  ;  from  time  to  time,  I  have  fought  for  that  which  seemed 
to  me  the  truth,  perhaps  still  more,  against  that  which  I  have 
thought  error ;  and,  in  this  way,  I  have  reached,  indeed  over- 
stepped, the  threshold  of  old  age.  There,  every  earnest  man 
has  to  listen  to  the  voice  within :  '  Give  an  account  of  thy 
stewardship,  for  thou  mayest  be  no  longer  steward.' 

"  That  I  have  been  an  unjust  steward  my  conscience  does  not 
bear  witness.  At  times  blundering,  at  times  negligent,  Heaven 
knows  :  but,  on  the  whole,  I  have  done  that  which  I  felt  able 
and  called  upon  to  do  ;  and  I  have  done  it  without  looking  to 
the  right  or  to  the  left ;  seeking  no  man's  favour,  fearing  no 
man's  disfavour. 

"But  what  is  it  that  I  have  been  doing?  In  the  end  one's 
conceptions  should  form  a  whole,  though  only  parts  may 
have  found  utterance,  as  occasion  arose  ;  now  do  these  exhibit 
harmony  and  mutual  connexion  ?  In  one's  zeal  much  of  the  old 
gets  broken  to  pieces  ;  but  has  one  made  ready  something  new, 
fit  to  be  set  in  the  place  of  the  old  ? 

"That  they  merely  destroy  without  reconstructing,  is  the 
especial  charge,  with  which  those  who  work  in  this  direction 
are  constantly  reproached.  In  a  certain  sense  I  do  not  defend 
myself  against  the  charge  ;  but  I  deny  that  any  reproach  is 
deserved. 

' '  I  have  never  proposed  to  myself  to  begin  outward  construc- 
tion ;  because  I  do  not  believe  that  the  time  has  come  for  it. 
Our  present  business  is  with  inward  preparation,  especially  the 


VI  PREFACE 

preparation  of  those  who  have  ceased  to  be  content  with  the 
old,  and  find  no  satisfaction  in  half  measures.  I  have  wished, 
and  I  still  wish,  to  disturb  no  man's  peace  of  mind,  no  man's 
beliefs ;  but  only  to  point  out  to  those  in  whom  they  are 
already  shattered,  the  direction  in  which,  in  my  conviction, 
firmer  ground  lies." l 

So  wrote  one  of  the  protagonists  of  the  New- 
Reformation — and  a  well-abused  man  if  ever 
there  was  one — a  score  of  years  since,  in  the  re- 
markable book  in  which  he  discusses  the  negative 
and  the  positive  results  of  the  rigorous  application 
of  scientific  method  to  the  investigation  of  the 
higher  problems  of  human  life. 

Recent  experience  leads  me  to  imagine  that 
there  may  be  a  good  many  countrymen  of  my 
own,  even  at  this  time,  to  whom  it  may  be  profit- 
able to  read,  mark  and  inwardly  digest,  the 
weighty  words  of  the  author  of  that  "  Leben  Jesu," 
which,  half  a  century  ago,  stirred  the  religious 
world  so  seriously  that  it  has  never  settled  down 
again  quite  on  the  old  foundations;  indeed,  some 
think  it  never  will.  I  have  a  personal  interest  in 
the  carrying  out  of  the  recommendation  I  venture 
to  make.  It  may  enable  many  worthy  persons,  in 
whose  estimation  I  should  really  be  glad  to  stand 
higher  than  I  do,  to  become  aware  of  the  possibility 
that  my  motives  in  writing  the  essays,  contained 
in  this  and  the  preceding  volume,  were  not  exactly 
those  that  they  ascribe  to  me. 

1  D.  F.  Strauss,  Der  aUe  und  der  neue  Glaube  (1872),  pp.  9-10. 


PREFACE  Vll 

I  too  have  reached  the  term  at  which  the  still, 
small  voice,  more  audible  than  any  other  to  the 
dulled  ear  of  age,  makes  its  demand ;  and  I  have 
found  that  it  is  of  no  sort  of  use  to  try  to  cook  the 
accounts  rendered.  Nevertheless,  I  distinctly-de- 
cline  to  admit  some  of  the  items  charged  ;  more 
particularly  that  of  having  "  gone  oat  of  my  way  " 
to  attack  the  Bible ;  and  I  as  steadfastly  deny 
that  "  hatred  of  Christianity  "  is  a  feeling  with 
which  I  have  any  acquaintance.  There  are  very 
few  things  which  I  find  it  permissible  to  hate ;  and 
though,  it  may  be,  that  some  of  the  organisations, 
which  arrogate  to  themselves  the  Christian  name, 
have  richly  earned  a  place  in  the  category  of 
hateful  things,  that  ought  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  one's  estimation  of  the  religion,  which  they 
have  perverted  and  disfigured  out  of  all  likeness 
to  the  original. 

The  simple  fact  is  that,  as  I  have  already  more 
than  once  hinted,  my  story  is  that  of  the  wolf  and 
the  lamb  over  again.  I  have  never  "  gone  out  of 
my  way "  to  attack  the  Bible,  or  anything  else  : 
it  was  the  dominant  ecclesiasticism  of  my  early 
days,  which,  as  I  believe,  without  any  warrant 
from  the  Bible  itself,  thrust  the  book  in  my  way. 

I  had  set  out  on  a  journey,  with  no  other 
purpose  than  that  of  exploring  a  certain  province 
of  natural  knowledge ;  I  strayed  no  hair's  breadth 
from  the  course  which  it  was  my  right  and  my 
duty  to  pursue  ;  and  yet  I  found  that,  whatever 


VI 11  PREFACE 

route  I  took,  before  long,  I  came  to  a  tall  and 
formidable-looking  fence.  Confident  as  I  might 
be  in  the  existence  of  an  ancient  and  indefeasible 
right  of  way,  before  me  stood  the  thorny 
barrier  with  its  comminatory  notice-board — "  No 
Thoroughfare.  By  order.  Moses."  There  seemed 
no  way  over;  nor  did  the  prospect  of  creeping 
round,  as  I  saw  some  do,  attract  me.  True  there 
was  no  longer  any  cause  to  fear  the  spring  guns 
and  man-traps  set  by  former  lords  of  the  manor ; 
but  one  is  apt  to  get  very  dirty  going  on  all-fours. 
The  only  alternatives  were  either  to  give  up  my 
journey — which  I  was  not  minded  to  do — or  to 
break  the  fence  down  and  go  through  it. 

Now  I  was  and  am,  by  nature,  a  law-abiding 
person,  ready  and  willing  to  submit  to  all  legiti- 
mate authority.  But  I  also  had  and  have  a 
rooted  conviction,  that  reasonable  assurance  of 
the  legitimacy  should  precede  the  submission  ;  so 
I  made  it  my  business  to  look  up  the  manorial 
title-deeds.  The  pretensions  of  the  ecclesiastical 
"  Moses  "  to  exercise  a  control  over  the  operations 
of  the  reasoning  faculty  in  the  search  after  truth, 
thirty  centuries  after  his  age,  might  be  justifiable ; 
but,  assuredly,  the  credentials  produced  in  justifi- 
cation of  claims  so  large  required  careful  scrutiny. 

Singular  discoveries  rewarded  my  industry. 
The  ecclesiastical  "  Moses "  proved  to  be  a  mere 
traditional  mask,  behind  which,  no  doubt,  lay  the 
features  of  the  historical  Moses — just  as  many  a 


PREFACE  IX 

mediaeval  fresco  has  been  hidden  by  the  whitewash 
of  Georgian  churchwardens.  And  as  the  aesthetic 
rector  too  often  scrapes  away  the  defacement,  only 
to  find  blurred,  parti-coloured  patches,  in  which  the 
original  design  is  no  longer  to  be  traced  ;  so,  when 
the  successive  layers  of  Jewish  and  Christian  tra- 
ditional pigment,  laid  on,  at  intervals,  for  near 
three  thousand  years,  had  been  removed,  by  even 
the  tenderest  critical  operations,  there  was  not 
much  to  be  discerned  of  the  leader  of  the  Exodus. 
Only  one  point  became  perfectly  clear  to  me, 
namely,  that  Moses  is  not  responsible  for  nine- 
tenths  of  the  Pentateuch  ;  certainly  not  for  the 
legends  which  had  been  made  the  bug-bears  of 
science.  In  fact,  the  fence  turned  oufrto  be  a  mere 
heap  of  dry  sticks  and  brushwood,  and  one  might 
walk  through  it  with  impunity :  the  which  I  did. 
But  I  was  still  young,  when  I  thus  ventured  to 
assert  my  liberty ;  and  young  people  are  apt  to  be 
filled  with  a  kind  of  sceva  inclignatio,  when  they 
discover  the  wide  discrepancies  between  things  as 
they  seem  and  things  as  they  are.  It  hurts  their 
vanity  to  feel  that  they  have  prepared  themselves 
for  a  mighty  struggle  to  climb  over,  or  break  their 
way  through,  a  rampart,  which  turns  out,  on  close 
approach,  to  be  a  mere  heap  of  ruins ;  venerable, 
indeed,  and  archseologically  interesting,  but  of  no 
other  moment.  And  some  fragment  of  the  super- 
fluous energy  accumulated  is  apt  to  find  vent  in 
strong  language. 


X  PREFACE 

Such,  I  suppose,  was  my  case,  when  I  wrote 
some  passages  which  occur  in  an  essay  reprinted 
among  "  Darwinians"  x  But  when,  not  long  ago 
"  the  voice  "  put  it  to  me,  whether  I  had  better 
not  expunge,  or  modify,  these  passages  ;  whether^ 
really,  they  were  not  a  little  too  strong ;  I  had  to 
reply,  with  all  deference,  that  while,  from  a  merely 
literary  point  of  view,  I  might  admit  them  to  be 
rather  crude,  I  must  stand  by  the  substance  of  these 
items  of  my  expenditure.  I  further  ventured  to 
express  the  conviction  that  scientific  criticism  of 
the  Old  Testament,  since  1860,  has  justified  every 
word  of  the  estimate  of  the  authority  of  the 
ecclesiastical  "  Moses  "  written  at  that  time.  And, 
carried  away  by  the  heat  of  self-justification,  I  even 
ventured  to  add,  that  the  desperate  attempt  now  set 
afoot  to  force  biblical  and  post-biblical  mythology 
into  elementary  instruction,  renders  it  useful  and 
necessary  to  go  on  making  a  considerable  outlay  in 
the  same  direction.  Not  yet,  has  "  the  cosmogony 
of  the  semi-barbarous  Hebrew "  ceased  to  be  the 
"  incubus  of  the  philosopher,  and  the  opprobrium 
of  the  orthodox ;  "  not  yet,  has  "  the  zeal  of  the 
Bibliolater  "  ceased  from  troubling ;  not  yet,  are 
the  weaker  sort,  even  of  the  instructed,  at  rest 
from  their  fruitless  toil  "to  harmonise  impossi- 
bilities," and  "  to  force  the  generous  new  wine  of 
science  into  the  old  bottles  of  Judaism." 

But  I  am  aware  that  the  head  and  front  of  my 
1  Collected  Essays,  vol.  ii,,  "On  the  Origin  of  Species"  (1860). 


PREFACE  XI 

offending  lies  not  now  where  it  formerly  lay.  Thirty 
years  ago,  criticism  of  "  Moses  "  was  held  by  most 
respectable  people  to  be  deadly  sin;  now  it  has 
sunk  to  the  rank  of  a  mere  peccadillo  ;  at  least,  if 
it  stops  short  of  the  history  of  Abraham.  Destroy 
the  foundation  of  most  forms  of  dogmatic  Christi- 
anity contained  in  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis,  if 
you  will;  the  new  ecclesiasticism  undertakes  to 
underpin  the  superstructure  and  make  it,atany  rate 
to  the  eye,  as  firm  as  ever:  but  let  him  be  anathema 
who  applies  exactly  the  same  canons  of  criticism 
to  the  opening  chapters  of  "  Matthew "  or  of 
"Luke."  School- children  may  be  told  that  the 
world  was  by  no  means  made  in  six  days,  and  that 
implicit  belief  in  the  story  of  Noah's  Ark  is  per- 
missible only,  as  a  matter  of  business,  to  their 
toy-makers ;  but  they  are  to  hold  for  the  certainest 
of  truths,  to  be  doubted  only  at  peril  of  their 
salvation,  that  their  Galilean  fellow-child  Jesus, 
nineteen  centuries  ago,  had  no  human  father. 

Well,  we  will  pass  the  item  of  1860,  said  "the 
voice."  But  why  all  this  more  recent  coil  about 
the  Gadarene  swine  and  the  like  ?  Do  you  pre- 
tend that  these  poor  animals  got  in  your  way, 
years  and  years  after  the  "  Mosaic "  fences  we>*e 
down,  at  any  rate  so  far  as  you  are  concerned  ? 

Got  in  my  way  ?  Why,  my  good  "  voice,"  they 
were  driven  in  my  way.  I  had  happened  to 
make  a  statement,  than  which,  so  far  as  I  have 


Xll  PREFACE 

ever  been  able  to  see,  nothing  can  be  more 
modest  or  inoffensive;  to  wit,  that  I  am  con- 
vinced of  my  own  utter  ignorance  about  a  great 
number  of  things,  respecting  which  the  great 
majority  of  my  neighbours  (not  only  those  of 
adult  years,  but  children  repeating  their  cate- 
chisms) affirm,  themselves  to  possess  full  infor- 
mation. I  ask  any  candid  and  impartial  judge, 
Is  that  attacking  anybody  or  anything  ? 

Yet,  if  I  had  made  the  most  wanton  and  arro- 
gant onslaught  on  the  honest  convictions  of  other 
people,  I  could  not  have  been  more  hardly  dealt 
with.  The  pentecostal  charism,  I  believe,  ex- 
hausted itself  amongst  the  earliest  disciples.  Yet 
any  one  who  has  had  to  attend,  as  I  have  done,  to 
copious  objurgations,  strewn  with  such  appella- 
tions as  "  infidel "  and  "  coward,"  must  be  a 
hardened  sceptic  indeed  if  he  doubts  the  exist- 
ence of  a  "  gift  of  tongues "  in  the  Churches 
of  our  time ;  unless,  indeed,  it  should  occur  to 
him  that  some  of  these  outpourings  may  have 
taken  place  after  "  the  third  hour  of  the  day." 
I  am  far  from  thinking  that  it  is  worth  while 
to  give  much  attention  to  these  inevitable  inci- 
dents of  all  controversies,  in  which  one  party  has 
acquired  the  mental  peculiarities  which  are  gene- 
rated by  the  habit  of  much  talking,  with  immunity 
from  criticism.  But  as  a  rule,  they  are  the  sauce  of 
dishes  of  misrepresentations  and  inaccuracies  which 
it  may  be  a  duty,  nay,  even  an  innocent  pleasure, 


PREFACE  Xlll 

to  expose.  In  the  particular  case  of  which  I  am 
thinking,  I  felt,  as  Strauss  says,  "able  and  called 
upon  "  to  undertake  the  business  :  and  it  is  no 
responsibility  of  mine,  if  I  found  the  Gospels, 
with  their  miraculous  stories,  of  which  the  Gada- 
rene  is  a  typical  example,  blocking  my  way,  as 
heretofore,  the  Pentateuch  had  done. 

I  was  challenged  to  question  the  authority  for 
the  theory  of  u  the  spiritual  world,"  and  the  prac- 
tical consequences  deducible  from  human  relations 
to  it,  contained  in  these  documents. 

In  my  judgment,  the  actuality  of  this  spiritual 
world — the  value  of  the  evidence  for  its  objective 
existence  and  its  influence  upon  the  course  of 
things — are  matters,  which  lie  as  much  within 
the  province  of  science,  as  any  other  question 
about  the  existence  and  powers  of  the  varied 
forms  of  living  and  conscious  activity. 

It  really  is  my  strong  conviction  that  a  man 
has  no  more  right  to  say  he  believes  this  world 
is  haunted  by  swarms  of  evil  spirits,  without  being 
able  to  produce  satisfactory  evidence  of  the  fact, 
than  he  has  a  right  to  say,  without  adducing  ade- 
quate proof,  that  the  circumpolar  antarctic  ice 
swarms  with  sea-serpents.  I  should  not  like  to 
assert  positively  that  it  does  not.  I  imagine 
that  no  cautious  biologist  would  say  as  much  ;  but 
while  quite  open  to  conviction,  he  might  properly 
decline  to  waste  time  upon  the  consideration 
of  talk,    no    better    accredited    than    forecastle 


XIV  PREFACE 

"yarns,"  about  such  monsters  of  the  deep. 
And  if  the  interests  of  ordinary  veracity  dictate 
this  course,  in  relation  to  a  matter  of  so  little 
consequence  as  this,  what  must  be  our  obligations 
in  respect  of  the  treatment  of  a  question  which  is 
fundamental  alike  for  science  and  for  ethics  ?  For 
not  only  does  our  general  theory  of  the  universe 
and  of  the  nature  of  the  order  which  pervades  it, 
hang  upon  the  answer ;  but  the  rules  of  practical 
life  must  be  deeply  affected  by  it. 

The  belief  in  a  demonic  world  is  inculcated 
throughout  the  Gospels  and  the  rest  of  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament ;  it  pervades  the  whole 
patristic  literature  ;  it  colours  the  theory  and  the 
practice  of  every  Christian  church  down  to  modern 
times.  Indeed,  I  doubt,  if  even  now,  there  is 
any  church  which,  officially,  departs  from  such  a 
fundamental  doctrine  of  primitive  Christianity  as 
the  existence,  in  addition  to  the  Cosmos  with 
which  natural  knowledge  is  conversant,  of  a  world 
of  spirits ;  that  is  to  say,  of  intelligent  agents,  not 
subject  to  the  physical  or  mental  limitations  of 
humanity,  bat  nevertheless  competent  to  interfere, 
to  an  undefined  extent,  with  the  ordinary  course  of 
both  physical  and  mental  phenomena. 

More  especially  is  this  conception  fundamental 

\      for  the  authors  of  the  Gospels.    Without  the  belief 

that  the  present  world,  and  particularly  that  part 

01  it  which  is  constituted  by  human  society,  has 

been  given  over,  since  the  Fall,  to  the  influence 


PREFACE  XV 

of  wicked  and  malignant  spiritual  beings,  governed 
and  directed  by  a  supreme  devil — the  moral 
antithesis  and  enemy  of  the  supreme  God — 
their  theory  of  salvation  by  the  Messiah  falls  to 
pieces.  "  To  this  end  was  the  Son  of  God  mani- 
fested, that  he  might  destroy  the  works  of  the 
devil."  1 

The  half-hearted  religiosity  of  latter-day  Chris- 
tianity may  choose  to  ignore  the  fact;  but  it 
remains  none  the  less  true,  that  he  who  refuses  to 
accept  the  demonology  of  the  Gospels  rejects  the 
revelation  of  a  spiritual  world,  made  in  them,  as 
much  as  if  he  denied  the  existence  of  such  a  person 
as  Jesus  of  Nazareth ;  and  deserves,  as  much  as  any 
one  can  do,  to  be  ear-marked  "  infidel "  by  our 
gentle  shepherds. 

Now  that  which  I  thought  it  desirable  to  make 
perfectly  clear,  on  my  own  account,  and  for  the 
sake  of  those  who  find  their  capacity  of  belief  in 
the  Gospel  theory  of  the  universe  failing  them,  is 
the  fact,  that,  in  my  judgment,  the  demonology  of 
primitive  Christianity  is  totally  devoid  of  founda- 
tion ;  and  that  no  man,  who  is  guided  by  the 
rales  of  investigation  which  are  found  to  lead 
to  the  discovery  of  truth  in  other  matters,  not 
merely  of  science,  but  in  the  everyday  affairs  of 
life,  will  arrive  at  any  other  conclusion.  To  those 
who  profess  to  be  otherwise  guided,  I  have  nothing 
1 1  Jolm  iii.  8. 


XVI  PREFACE 

to  say ;  but  to  beg  them,  to  go  their  own  way  and 
leave  me  to  mine. 

I  think  it  may  be  as  well  to  repeat  what  I  have 
said,  over  and  over  again,  elsewhere,  that  a  'priori 
notions,  about  the  possibility,  or  the  impossibility, 
of  the  existence  of  a  world  of  spirits,  such  as  that 
presupposed  by  genuine  Christianity,  have  no 
influence  on  my  mind.  The  question  for  me  is 
purely  one  of  evidence  :  is  the  evidence  adequate 
to  bear  out  the  theory,  or  is  it  not  ?  In  my 
judgment  it  is  not  only  inadequate,  but  quite 
absurdly  insufficient.  And  on  that  ground,  I 
should  feel  compelled  to  reject  the  theory;  even 
if  there  were  no  positive  grounds  for  adopting  a 
totally  different  conception  of  the  Cosmos. 

For  most  people,  the  question  of  the  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  a  demonic  world,  in  the  long 
run,  resolves  itself  into  that  of  the  trustworthiness 
of  the  Gospels ;  first,  as  to  the  objective  truth 
of  that  which  they  narrate  on  this  topic ;  second, 
as  to  the  accuracy  of  the  interpretation  which 
their  authors  put  upon  these  objective  facts.  For 
example,  with  respect  to  the  Gadarene  miracle,  it 
is  one  question  whether,  at  a  certain  time  and 
place,  a  raving  madman  became  sane,  and  a  herd 
of  swine  rushed  into  the  lake  of  Tiberias ;  and 
quite  another,  whether  the  cause  of  these  occur- 
rences was  the  transmigration  of  certain  devils 
from  the  man  into  the  pigs.  And  again,  it  is  one 
question  whether  Jesus  made  a  long  oration  on  a 


PREFACE  XVll 

certain  occasion,  mentioned  in  the  first  Gospel ; 
altogether  another,  whether  more  or  fewer  of  the 
propositions  contained  in  the  "Sermon  on  the 
Mount  "  were  uttered  on  that  occasion.  One  may 
give  an  affirmative  answer  to  one  of  each  of  these 
pairs  of  questions  and  a  negative  to  the  other :  one 
may  affirm  all,  or  deny  all. 

In  considering  the  historical  value  of  any  four 
documents,  proof  when  they  were  written  and 
who  wrote  them  is,  no  doubt,  highly  important. 
For  if  proof  exists,  that  A  B  C  and  D  wrote  them, 
and  that  they  were  intelligent  persons,  writing 
independently  and  without  prejudice,  about  facts 
within  their  own  knowledge — their  statements 
must  need  be  worthy  of  the  most  attentive  con- 
sideration.1 But,  even  ecclesiastical  tradition  does 
not  assert  that  either  "  Mark  "  or  "  Luke  "  wrote 
from  his  own  knowledge — indeed  "  Luke  "  ex- 
pressly asserts  he  did  not.  I  cannot  discover  that 
any  competent  authority  now  maintains  that  the 
apostle  Matthew  wrote  the  Gospel  which  passes 
under  his  name.  And  whether  the  apostle  John 
had,  or  had  not,  anything  to  do  with  the  fourth 
Gospel ;  and  if  he  had,  what  his  share  amounted 
to  ;  are,  as  everybody  who  has  attended  to  these 
matters  knows,  questions  still  hotly  disputed,  and 
with   regard   to  which    the  extant   evidence  can 

3  Not  necessarily  of  more  than  this.  A  few  centuries  ago  the 
twelve  most  intelligent  and  impartial  men  to  be  found  in 
England,  would  have  independently  testified  that  the  sua 
moves,  from  east  to  west,  across  the  heavens  every  day. 

115 


XV111  PKEFACE 

hardly    carry    no    impartial    judge    beyond    the 
admission  of  a  possibility  this  way  or  that. 

Thus,  nothing  but  a  balancing  of  very  dubious 
probabilities  is  to  be  attained  by  approaching 
the  question  from  this  side.  It  is  otherwise  if 
we  make  the  documents  tell  their  own  story  :  if 
we  study  them,  as  we  study  fossils,  to  discover  in- 
ternal evidence  of  when  they  arose,  and  how  they 
have  come  to  be.  That  really  fruitful  line  of  in- 
quiry has  led  to  the  statement  and  the  discussion 
of  what  is  known  as  the  Synoptic  Problem. 

In  the  Essays  (VII. — XI.)  which  deal  with  the 
consequences  of  the  application  of  the  agnostic 
principle  to  Christian  Evidences,  contained  in  this 
volume,  there  are  several  references  to  the  results 
of  the  attempts  which  have  been  made,  during 
the  last  hundred  years,  to  solve  this  problem. 
And,  though  it  has  been  clearly  stated  and 
discussed,  in  works  accessible  to,  and  intelligible 
by,  every  English  reader,1  it  may  be  well  that  I 
should  here  set  forth  a  very  brief  exposition  of 
the  matters  of  fact  out  of  which  the  problem  has 
arisen  ;  and  of  some  consequences,  which,  as  I  con- 
ceive, must  be  admitted  if  the  facts  are  accepted. 

These  undisputed  and,  apparently,  indisputable 
data  may  be  thus  stated  : 

I.  The  three  books  of  which  an   ancient,  but 

1  Nowhere  more  concisely  and  clearly  than  in  Dr.  Sutherland 
Black's  article  "Gospels  "  in  Chambers's  Encyclopaedia.  Refer- 
ences are  given  to  the  more  elaborate  discussions  of  the  problem, 


PREFACE  XIX 

very  questionable,  ecclesiastical  tradition  asserts 
Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  to  be  the  authors, 
agree,  not  only  in  presenting  the  same  general 
view,  or  Synopsis,  of  the  nature  and  the  order 
of  the  events  narrated;  but,  to  a  remarkable 
extent,  the  very  words  which  they  employ 
coincide. 

II.  Nevertheless,  there  are  many  equally  marked, 
and  some  irreconcilable,  differences  between 
them.  Narratives,  verbally  identical  in  some  por- 
tions, diverge  more  or  less  in  others.  The  order 
in  which  they  occur  in  one,  or  in  two,  Gospels 
may  be  changed  in  another.  In  "  Matthew  "  and 
in  "  Luke  "  events  of  great  importance  make  their 
appearance,  where  the  story  of  "  Mark  "  seems  to 
leave  no  place  for  them ;  and,  at  the  beginning  and 
the  end  of  the  two  former  Gospels,  there  is  a 
great  amount  of  matter  of  which  there  is  no 
trace  in  "Mark." 

III.  Obvious  and  highly  important  differences, 
in  style  and  substance,  separate  the  three 
"  Synoptics,"  taken  together,  from  the  fourth 
Gospel,  connected,  by  ecclesiastical  tradition,  with 
the  name  of  the  apostle  John.  In  its  philosophical 
proemium ;  in  the  conspicuous  absence  of  exorcistic 
miracles ;  in  the  self-assertive  theosophy  of  the 
long  and  diffuse  monologues,  which  are  so  utterly 
unlike  the  brief  and  pregnant  utterances  of  Jesus 
recorded  in  the  Synoptics ;  in  the  assertion  that 
the  crucifixion   took  place   before   the   Passover, 


XX  PREFACE 

which  involves  the  denial,  by  implication,  of  the 
truth  of  the  Synoptic  story — to  mention  only  a 
few  particulars — the  "  Johannine"  Gospel  presents 
a  wide  divergence  from  the  other  three. 

IV.  If  the  mutual  resemblances  and  differences 
of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  are  closely  considered,  a 
curious  result  comes  out ;  namely,  that  each  may 
be  analyzed  into  four  components.  The  first  of 
these  consists  of  passages,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent  verbally  identical,  which  occur  in  all  three 
Gospels.  If  this  triple  tradition  is  separated 
from  the  rest  it  will  be  found  to  comprise : 

a.  A  narrative,  of  a  somewhat  broken  and 
anecdotic  aspect,  which  covers  the  period  from  the 
appearance  of  John  the  Baptist  to  the  discovery 
of  the  emptiness  of  the  tomb,  on  the  first  day 
of  the  week,  some  six-and-thirty  hours  after 
the  crucifixion. 

o.  An  apocalyptic  address. 

c.  Parables  and  brief  discourses,  or  rather, 
centos  of  religious  and  ethical  exhortations  and 
injunctions. 

The  second  and  the  third  set  of  components  of 
each  Gospel  present  equally  close  resemblances  to 
passages,  which  are  found  in  only  one  of  the  other 
Gospels ;  therefore  it  may  be  said  that,  for  them, 
the  tradition  is  double.  The  fourth  component 
is  peculiar  to  each  Gospel ;  it  is  a  single  tradition 
and  has  no  repiesentative  in  the  others. 

To  put  the  facts  in  another  way :  each  Gospel 


PEEFACE  XXI 

is  composed  of  a  threefold  tradition,  two  twofold 
traditions,  and  one  peculiar  tradition.  If  the 
Gospels  were  the  work  of  totally  independent 
writers,  it  would  follow  that  there  are  three  wit- 
nesses for  the  statements  in  the  first  tradition ; 
two  for  each  of  those  in  the  second,  and  only  one 
for  those  in  the  third. 

V.  If  the  reader  will  now  take  up  that  ex- 
tremely instructive  little  book,  Abbott  and  Eush- 
brouke's  "  Common  Tradition "  he  will  easily 
satisfy  himself  that  "  Mark  "  has  the  remarkable 
structure  just  described.  Almost  the  whole  of 
this  Gospel  consists  of  the  first  component; 
namely,  the  threefold  tradition.  But  in  chap.  i. 
23-28  he  will  discover  an  exorcistic  story, 
not  to  be  found  in  "Matthew,"  but  repeated, 
often  word  for  word,  in  "  Luke."  This,  therefore, 
belongs  to  one  of  the  twofold  traditions.  In  chap, 
viii.  1-10,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  detailed 
account  of  the  miracle  of  feeding  the  four  thou- 
sand ;  which  is  closely  repeated  in  "  Matthew  "  xv. 
32-39,  but  is  not  to  be  found  in  "  Luke."  This  is 
an  example  of  the  other  twofold  tradition,  possible 
in  "  Mark."  Finally,  the  story  of  the  blind  man 
of  Bethsaida,  "  Mark "  viii.  22-26,  is  "peculiar  to 
"  Mark." 

VI.  Suppose  that,  A  standing  for  the  threefold 
tradition,  or  the  matter  common  to  all  three  Gos- 
pels ;  we  call  the  matter  common  to  "  Mark  "  and 
"Matthew"  only — B;  that  common  to  "Mark" 


XX11  PREFACE 

and  "  Luke  "  only — C  ;  that  common  to  "  Matthew  " 
and  "  Luke  "  only — D  ;  while  the  peculiar  com- 
ponents of  "  Mark,"  "  Matthew/'  and  "  Luke  "  are 
severally  indicated  by  E,  F,  G ;  then  the  structure 
of  the  Gospels  may  be  represented  thus : 

Components  of  "  Mark  "    =     A  +  B  +  C  +  E. 

"Matthew"    =    A  +  B  +  D  +  F. 
"Luke"      =    A  +  C+D  +  G. 

VII.  The  analysis  of  the  Synoptic  documents 
need  be  carried  no  further  than  this  point,  in 
order  to  suggest  one  extremely  important,  and, 
apparently  unavoidable  conclusion ;  and  that  is, 
that  their  authors  were  neither  three  independent 
witnesses  of  the  things  narrated ;  nor,  for  the 
parts  of  the  narrative  about  which  all  agree,  that 
is  to  say,  the  threefold  tradition,  did  they  employ 
independent  sources  of  information.  It  is  sim- 
ply incredible  that  each  of  three  independent 
witnesses  of  any  series  of  occurrences  should 
tell  a  story  so  similar,  not  only  in  arrangement 
and  in  small  details,  but  in  words,  to  that  of 
each  of  the  others. 

Hence  it  follows,  either  that  the  Synoptic 
writers  have,  mediately  or  immediately,  copied 
one  from  the  other :  or  that  the  three  have  drawn 
from  a  common  source ;  that  is  to  say,  from  one 
arrangement  of  similar  traditions  (whether  oral 
or   written)  ;  though  that  arrangement  may  have 


PREFACE  xxiii 

been  extant  in  three  or  more,  somewhat  different 
versions. 

VIII.  The  suppositions  (a)  that  "  Mark "  had 
"  Matthew "  and  "  Luke  "  before  him  ;  and  (b) 
that  either  of  the  two  latter  was  acquainted  with 
the  work  of  the  other,  would  seem  to  involve  some 
singular  consequences. 

a.  The  second  Gospel  is  saturated  with  the 
lowest  supernaturalism.  Jesus  is  exhibited 
as  a  wonder-worker  and  exorcist  of  the  first  rank. 
The  earliest  public  recognition  of  the  Messiahship 
of  Jesus  comes  from  an  "  unclean  spirit";  he  him- 
self is  made  to  testify  to  the  occurrence  of  the 
miraculous  feeding  twice  over. 

The  purpose  with  which  w  Mark  "  sets  out  is 
to  show  forth  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God,  and  it  is 
suggested,  if  not  distinctly  stated,  that  he  ac- 
quired this  character  at  his  baptism  by  John. 
The  absence  of  any  reference  to  the  miraculous 
events  of  the  infancy,  detailed  by  "Matthew" 
and  "  Luke ; "  or  to  the  appearances  after  the 
discovery  of  the  emptiness  of  the  tomb ;  is  unin- 
telligible, if  "  Mark  "  knew  anything  about  them, 
or  believed  in  the  miraculous  conception.  The 
second  Gospel  is  no  summary :  "  Mark  "  can  find 
room  for  the  detailed  story,  irrelevant  to  his  main 
purpose,  of  the  beheading  of  John  the  Baptist,  and 
his  miraculous  narrations  are  crowded  with  minute 
particulars.  Is  it  to  be  imagined  that,  with 
the    supposed    apostolic    authority    of  Matthew 


XXIV  PREFACE 

"before  him,  lie  could  leave  out  the  miraculous 
conception  of  Jesus  and  the  ascension  ?  Further, 
ecclesiastical  tradition  would  have  us  believe  that 
Mark  wrote  down  his  recollections  of  what  Peter 
taught.  Did  Peter  then  omit  to  mention  these 
matters  ?  Did  the  fact  testified  by  the  oldest 
authority  extant,  that  the  first  appearance  of  the 
risen  Jesus  was  to  himself  seem  not  worth  men- 
tioning ?  Did  he  really  fail  to  speak  of  the  great 
position  in  the  Church  solemnly  assigned  to  him  by 
Jesus?  The  alternative  would  seem  to  be  the 
impeachment  either  of  Mark's  memory,  or  of  his 
judgment.  But  Mark's  memory,  is  so  good  that 
he  can  recollect  how,  on  the  occasion  of  the  stilling 
*of  the  waves,  Jesus  was  asleep  "  on  the  cushion," 
he  remembers  that  the  woman  with  the  issue  had 
"  spent  all  she  had "  on  her  physicians ;  that 
there  was  not  room  "even  about  the  door"  on  a 
certain  occasion  at  Capernaum.  And  it  is  surely 
hard  to  believe  that  "  Mark  "  should  have  failed  to 
recollect  occurrences  of  infinitely  greater  moment, 
or  that  he  should  have  deliberately  left  them  out, 
as  things  not  worthy  of  mention. 

h.  The  supposition  that  "  Matthew "  was 
acquainted  with  "  Luke,"  or  "  Luke"  with 
"  Matthew "  has  equally  grave  implications.  If 
that  be  so,  the  one  who  used  the  other  could  have 
had  but  a  poor  opinion  of  his  predecessor's  his- 
torical veracity.  If,  as  most  experts  agree,  "  Luke  " 
is  later  than  "  Matthew,"  it  is  clear  that  he  does 


PEEFACE  XXV 

not  credit  "  Matthew's  "  account  of  the  infancy  ; 
does  not  believe  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount " 
as  given  by  Matthew  was  preached ;  does  not  be- 
lieve in  the  two  feeding  miracles,  to  which  Jesus 
himself  is  made  to  refer ;  wholly  discredits 
"  Matthew's "  account  of  the  events  after  the 
crucifixion;  and  thinks  it  not  worth  while  to 
notice  "  Matthew's  "  grave  admission  that  "  some 
doubted." 

IX.  None  of  these  troublesome  consequences 
pursue  the  hypothesis  that  the  threefold  tradition, 
in  one,  or  more,  Greek  versions,  was  extant  before 
either  of  the  canonical  Synoptic  Gospels  ;  and  that 
it  furnished  the  fundamental  framework  of  their 
several  narratives.  Where  and  when  the  three- 
fold narrative  arose,  there  is  no  positive  evidence ; 
though  it  is  obviously  probable  that  the  traditions 
it  embodies,  and  perhaps  many  others,  took  their 
rise  in  Palestine  and  spread  thence  to  Asia  Minor, 
Greece,  Egypt  and  Italy,  in  the  track  of  the  early 
missionaries.  Nor  is  it  less  likely  that  they 
formed  part  of  the  "  didaskalia  "  of  the  primitive 
Nazarene  and  Christian  communities.1 

X.  The  interest  which  attaches  to  "Mark" 
arises  from  the  fact  that  it  seems  to  present  this 

1  Those  who  regard  the  Apocalyptic  discourse  as  a  "vaticina- 
tion after  the  event"  may  draw  conclusions  therefrom  as  to  the 
date  of  the  Gospels  in  which  its  several  forms  occur.  But  the 
assumption  is  surely  dangerous,  from  an  apologetic  point  of 
view,  since  it  begs  the  question  as  to  the  unhistorical  character 
of  this  solemn  prophecy. 


XXVI  PREFACE 

early,  probably  earliest,  Greek  Gospel  narrative, 
with  least  addition,  or  modification.  If,  as  appears 
likely  from  some  internal  evidences,  it  was  com- 
piled for  the  use  of  the  Christian  sodalities  in 
Rome ;  and  that  it  was  accepted  by  them  as  an 
adequate  account  of  the  life  and  work  of  Jesus,  it 
is  evidence  of  the  most  valuable  kind  respecting 
their  beliefs  and  the  limits  of  dogma,  as  conceived 
by  them. 

In  such  case,  a  good  Roman  Christian  of  that 
epoch  might  know  nothing  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation,  as  taught  by  "  Matthew  "  and  "  Luke  " ; 
still  less  of  the  "logos"  doctrine  of  "John";  neither 
need  he  have  believed  anything  more  than  the 
simple  fact  of  the  resurrection.  It  was  open  to 
him  to  believe  it  either  corporeal,  or  spiritual.  He 
would  never  have  heard  of  the  power  of  the  keys 
bestowed  upon  Peter  ;  nor  have  had  brought  to  his 
mind  so  much  as  a  suggestion  of  trinitarian  doc- 
trine. He  might  be  a  rigidly  monotheistic  Judseo- 
Christian,  and  consider  himself  bound  by  the 
law :  he  might  be  a  Gentile  Pauline  convert, 
neither  knowing  of  nor  caring  for  such  restrictions. 
In  neither  case  would  he  find  in  "Mark"  any 
serious  stumbling-block.  In  fact,  persons  of  all 
the  categories  admitted  to  salvation  by  Justin,  in 
the  middle  of  the  second  century,1  could  accept 
"  Mark  "  from  beginning  to  end.  It  may  well  be, 
that,  in  this  wide  adaptability,  backed  by  the 
1  See  p.  287  of  this  volume. 


PEEFACE  XXVll 

authority  of  the  metropolitan  church,  there  lies 
the  reason  for  the  fact  of  the  preservation  of 
"  Mark,"  notwithstanding  its  limited  and  dogma- 
tically colourless  character,  as  compared  with  the 
Gospels  of  "  Luke  "  and  "  Matthew." 

XI.  "  Mark,"  as  we  have  seen,  contains  a  re- 
latively small  body  of  ethical  arid  religious  in- 
struction and  only  a  few  parables.  Were  these 
all  that  existed  in  the  primitive  threefold  tradi- 
tion ?  Were  none  others  current  in  the  Roman 
communities,  at  the  time  "  Mark  "  wrote,  supposing 
he  Wrote  in  Rome  ?  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
there  extant,  as  early  as  the  time  at  which 
"  Mark "  composed  his  Greek  edition  of  the 
primitive  Evangel,  one  or  more  collections  of 
parables  and  teachings,  such  as  those  which  form 
the  bulk  of  the  twofold  tradition,  common  ex- 
clusively to  "  Matthew  "  and  "  Luke,"  and  are 
also  found  in  their  single  traditions  ?  Many  have 
assumed  this,  or  these,  collections  to  be  identical 
with,  or  at  any  rate  based  upon,  the  "  logia,"  of 
which  ecclesiastical  tradition  says,  that  they  were 
written  in  Aramaic  by  Matthew,  and  that  every- 
body translated  them  as  he  could. 

Here  is  the  old  difficulty  again.  If  such  ma- 
terials were  known  to  "  Mark,"  what  imaginable 
reason  could  he  have  for  not  using  them  ?  Surely 
displacement  of  the  long  episode  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist— even  perhaps  of  the  story  of  the  Gadarene 
swine — by  portions  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  or 


XXV111  PREFACE 

by  one  or  two  of  the  beautiful  parables  in  th^ 
twofold  and  single  traditions  would  have  been 
great  improvements ;  and  might  have  been 
effected,  even  though  "  Mark "  was  as  much 
pressed  for  space  as  some  have  imagined.  But 
there  is  no  ground  for  that  imagination ;  Mark 
has  actually  found  room  for  four  or  five  parables ; 
why  should  he  not  have  given  the  best,  if  he  had 
known  of  them  ?  Admitting  he  was  the  mere 
pedisscquus  et  breviator  of  Matthew,  that  even 
Augustine  supposed  him  to  be,  what  could  induce 
him  to  omit  the  Lord's  Prayer  ? 

Whether  more  or  less  of  the  materials  of  the  two- 
fold tradition  D,  and of  the  peculiar  traditions  F  and 
G,  were  or  were  not  current  in  some  of  the  com- 
munities, as  early  as,  or  perhaps  earlier  than,  the 
triple  tradition,  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  discuss; 
nor  to  consider  those  solutions  of  the  Synoptic 
problem  which  assume  that  it  existed  earlier,  and 
was  already  combined  with  more  or  less  narrative. 
Those  who  are  working  out  the  final  solution  of  the 
Synoptic  problem  are  taking  into  account,  more 
than  hitherto,  the  possibility  that  the  widely 
separated  Christian  communities  of  Palestine, 
Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  and  Italy,  especially  after  the 
Jewish  war  of  A.D.  66-70,  may  have  found  them- 
selves in  possession  of  very  different  traditional 
materials.  Many  circumstances  tend  to  the  con- 
clusion that,  in  Asia  Minor,  even  the  narrative 
part  of  the  threefold  tradition  had  a  formidable 


PREFACE  XX]  X 

rival;  and  that,  around  this  second  narrative, 
teaching  traditions  of  a  totally  different  order 
from  those  in  the  Synoptics,  grouped  themselves ; 
and,  under  the  influence  of  converts  imbued  more 
or  less  with  the  philosophical  speculations  of  the 
time,  eventually  took  shape  in  the  fourth  Gospel 
and  its  associated  literature. 

XII.  But  it  is  unnecessary,  and  it  would  be 
out  of  place,  for  me  to  attempt  to  do  more  than 
indicate  the  existence  of  these  complex  and  diffi- 
cult questions.  My  purpose  has  been  to  make  it 
clear  that  the  Synoptic  problem  must  force  itself 
upon  every  one  who  studies  the  Gospels  with 
attention ;  that  the  broad  facts  of  the  case,  and 
some  of  the  consequences  deducible  from  these 
facts,  are  just  as  plain  to  the  simple  English 
reader  as  they  are  to  the  profoundest  scholar. 

One  of  these  consequences  is  that  the  three- 
fold tradition  presents  us  with  a  narrative  believed 
to  be  historically  true,  in  all  particulars,  by  the 
major  part,  if  not  the  whole,  of  the  Christian 
communities.  That  narrative  is  penetrated,  from 
beginning  to  end,  by  the  demonological  beliefs  of 
which  the  Gadarene  story  is  a  specimen ;  and,  if 
the  fourth  Gospel  indicates  the  existence  of  another 
and,  in  some  respects,  irreconcilably  divergent 
narrative,  in  which  the  demon ology  retires  into 
the  background,  it  is  none  the  less  there. 

Therefore,  the  demonology  is  an  integral  and 
inseparable  component  of  primitive  Christianity. 


XXX  PREFACE 

The  farther  back  the  origin  of  the  gospels  is 
dated,  the  stronger  does  the  certainty  of  this  con- 
clusion grow ;  and  the  more  difficult  it  becomes  to 
suppose  that  Jesus  himself  may  not  have  shared 
the  superstitious  beliefs  of  his  disciples. 

It  further  follows  that  those  who  accept  devils, 
possession,  and  exorcism  as  essential  elements 
of  their  conception  of  the  spiritual  world  may 
consistently  consider  the  testimony  of  the  Gospels 
to  be  unimpeachable  in  respect  of  the  information 
they  give  us  respecting  other  matters  which 
appertain  to  that  world. 

Those  who  reject  the  gospel  demonology,  on 
the  other  hand,  would  seem  to  be  as  completely 
barred,  as  I  feel  myself  to  be,  from  professing  to 
take  the  accuracy  of  that  information  for  granted. 
If  the  threefold  tradition  is  wrong  about  one 
fundamental  topic,  it  may  be  wrong  about  another, 
while  the  authority  of  the  single  traditions,  often 
mutually  contradictory  as  they  are,  becomes  a 
vanishing  quantity. 

It  really  is  unreasonable  to  ask  any  rejector  of 
the  demonology  to  say  more  with  respect  to  those 
other  matters,  than  that  the  statements  regarding 
them  may  be  true,  or  may  be  false ;  and  that  the 
ultimate  decision,  if  it  is  to  be  favourable,  must 
depend  on  the  production  of  testimony  of  a  very 
different  character  from  that  of  the  writers  of  the 
four  gospels.  Until  such  evidence  is  brought  for- 
ward, that  refusal  of  assent,  with  willingness  to 


PREFACE  XXXI 

re-open  the  question,  on  cause  shown,  which  is 
what  I  mean  by  Agnosticism,  is,  for  me  the  only 
course  open. 

A  verdict  of  "not  proven"  is  undoubtedly 
unsatisfactory  and  essentially  provisional,  so  far 
forth  as  the  subject  of  the  trial  is  capable  of  being 
dealt  with  by  due  process  of  reason. 

Those  who  are  of  opinion  that  the  historical 
realities  at  the  root  of  Christianity,  lie  beyond  the 
jurisdiction  of  science,  need  not  be  considered. 
Those  who  are  convinced  that  the  evidence  is,  and 
must  always  remain,  insufficient  to  support  any 
definite  conclusion,  are  justified  in  ignoring  the 
subject.  They  must  be  content  to  put  up  with  that 
reproach  of  being  mere  destroyers,  of  which  Strauss 
speaks.  They  may  say  that  there  are  so  many 
problems  which  are  and  must  remain  insoluble, 
that  the  "  burden  of  the  mystery "  "  of  all  this 
unintelligible  world"  is  not  appreciably  affected 
by  one  more  or  less. 

For  myself,  I  must  confess  that  the  problem  of 
the  origin  of  such  very  remarkable  historical 
phenomena  as  the  doctrines,  and  the  social 
organization,  which,  in  their  broad  features  cer- 
tainly existed,  and  were  in  a  state  of  rapid 
development,  within  a  hundred  years  of  the 
crucifixion  of  Jesus;  and  which  have  steadily 
prevailed  against  all  rivals,  among  the  most  intelli- 
gent and  civilized  nations  in  the  world  ever  since, 


XXXU  PREFACE 

is,  and  always  has  been,  profoundly  interesting; 
and,  considering  how  recent  the  really  scientific 
study  of  that  problem,  and  how  great  the  progress 
made  during  the  last  half  century  in  supplying  the 
conditions  for  a  positive  solution  of  the  problem, 
I  cannot  doubt  that  the  attainment  of  such  a 
solution  is  a  mere  question  of  time. 

I  am  well  aware  that  it  has  lain  far  beyond  my 
powers  to  take  any  share  in  this  great  under- 
taking. All  that  I  can  hope  is  to  have  done 
somewhat  towards  "  the  preparation  of  those  who 
have  ceased  to  be  contented  with  the  old  and  find 
no  satisfaction  in  half  measures  "  :  perhaps,  also, 
something  towards  the  lessening  of  that  great 
proportion  of  my  countrymen,  whose  eminent 
characteristic  it  is  that  they  find  full  "  full  satis- 
faction in  half  measures."  T.  H.  H. 

Hodeslea,  Eastbourne, 
December  4th,  1893. 


CONTENTS 


i 

PAGE 
PKOLOGUE 1 

{Controverted  Questions,  1892). 
II 

SCIENTIFIC  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM    [1887]    .     .        59 

III 

SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE    [1887] 90 

IV 

AN    EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY    [1887] 126 

V 

THE  VALUE  OF  WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS   [1889]  .     .      160 

116 


XXXIV  CONTENTS 


VI 

PA  OF 

POSSIBILITIES   AND    IMPOSSIBILITIES   [1891] 192 


VII 
AGNOSTICISM  [1889] 209 

VIII 

AGNOSTICISM  :    A   REJOINDER  [1889] 263 

IX 

AGNOSTICISM   AND    CHRISTIANITY    [1889] 309 

X 

THE   KEEPERS   OF   THE   HERD   OF   SWINE  [1890] 366 

XI 

ILLUSTRATIONS     OF     MR.     GLADSTONE'S     CONTROVERSIAL 

METHODS  [1891] 393 


PROLOGUE 

[Controverted  Questions,  1892] 

Le  plus  grand  service  qu'on  puisse  rendre  a  la  science  est  d'y 
faire  place  nette  avant  d'y  rien  construire. — Cuvier. 

Most  of  the  Essays  comprised  in  the  present 
volume  have  been  written  during  the  last  six  or 
seven  years,  without  premeditated  purpose  or 
intentional  connection,  in  reply  to  attacks  upon 
doctrines  which  I  hold  to  be  well  founded ;  or  in 
refutation  of  allegations  respecting  matters  lying 
within  the  province  of  natural  knowledge,  which  I 
believe  to  be  erroneous  ;  and  they  bear  the  mark 
of  their  origin  in  the  controversial  tone  which 
pervades  them. 

Of  polemical  writing,  as  of  other  kinds  of  war- 
fare, I  think  it  may  be  said,  that  it  is  often  useful, 
sometimes  necessary,  and  always  more  or  less  of 
an  evil.  It  is  useful,  when  it  attracts  attention  to 
topics  which  might  otherwise  be  neglected;  and 
when,  as  does  sometimes  happen,  those  who  come 
to  see  a  contest  remain  to  think.     It  is  necessary, 


2  PEOLOGUE  I 

when  the  interests  of  truth  and  of  justice  are  at 
stake.  It  is  an  evil,  in  so  far  as  controversy 
always  tends  to  degenerate  into  quarrelling,  to 
swerve  from  the  great  issue  of  what  is  right  and 
what  is  wrong  to  the  very  small  question  of  who 
is  right  and  who.  is  wrong.  I  venture  to  hope 
that  the  useful  and  the  necessary  were  more 
conspicuous  than  the  evil  attributes  of  literary 
militancy,  when  these  papers  were  first  published  ; 
but  I  have  had  some  hesitation  about  reprinting 
them.  If  I  may  judge  by  my  own  taste,  few 
literary  dishes  are  less  appetising  than  cold 
controversy ;  moreover,  there  is  an  air  of  unfair- 
ness about  the  presentation  of  only  one  side  of 
a  discussion,  and  a  flavour  of  unkindness  in  the 
reproduction  of  "  winged  words,"  which,  however 
appropriate  at  the  time  of  their  utterance,  would 
find  a  still  more  appropriate  place  in  oblivion. 
Yet,  since  I  could  hardly  ask  those  who  have 
honoured  me  by  their  polemical  attentions  to 
confer  lustre  on  this  collection,  by  permitting  me 
to  present  their  lucubrations  along  with  my  own  ; 
and  since  it  would  be  a  manifest  wrong  to  them  to 
deprive  their,  by  no  means  rare,  vivacities  of 
language  of  such  justification  as  they  may  derive 
from  similar  freedoms  on  my  part ;  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  my  best  course  was  to  leave  the 
essays  just  as  they  were  written ; 1  assuring  my 

1  With  a  few  exceptions,  which  are  duly  noted  when  they 
amount  to  more  than  verbal  corrections. 


I  PROLOGUE  3 

honourable  adversaries  that  any  heat  of  which 
signs  may  remain  was  generated,  in  accordance 
with  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  by  the 
force  of  their  own  blows,  and  has  long  since  been 
dissipated  into  space. 

But.  however  the  polemical  concomitants  of 
these  discussions  may  be  regarded — or  better,  dis- 
regarded— there  is  no  doubt  either  about  the  im- 
portance of  the  topics  of  which  they  treat,  or 
as  to  the  public  interest  in  the  "  Controverted 
Questions "  with  which  they  deal.  Or  rather, 
the  Controverted  Question;  for  disconnected  as 
these  pieces  may,  perhaps,  appear  to  be,  they  are, 
in  fact,  concerned  only  with  different  aspects  of  a 
single  problem,  with  which  thinking  men  have 
been  occupied,  ever  since  they  began  seriously  to 
consider  the  wonderful  frame  of  things  in  which 
their  lives  are  set,  and  to  seek  for  trustworthy 
guidance  among  its  intricacies. 

Experience  speedily  taught  them  that  the 
shifting  scenes  of  the  world's  stage  have  a  perma- 
nent background  ;  that  there  is  order  amidst  the 
seeming  confusion,  and  that  many  events  take 
place  according  to  unchanging  rules.  To  this 
region  of  familiar  steadiness  and  customary  regu- 
larity they  gave  the  name  of  Nature.  But,  at  the 
same  time,  their  infantile  and  untutored  reason, 
little  more,  as  yet,  than  the  playfellow  of  the 
imagination,  led  them  to  believe  that  this  tangible, 
commonplace,    orderly  world  of  Nature  was  sur- 


4  PROLOGUE  I 

rounded  and  interpenetrated  by  another  intangible 
and  mysterious  world,  no  more  bound  by  fixed 
rules  than,  as  they  fancied,  were  the  thoughts  and 
passions  which  coursed  through  their  minds  and 
seemed  to  exercise  an  intermittent  and  capricious 
rule  over  their  bodies.  They  attributed  to  the 
entities,  with  which  they  peopled  this  dim  and 
dreadful  region,  an  unlimited  amount  of  that 
power  of  modifying  the  course  of  events  of  which 
they  themselves  possessed  a  small  share,  and 
thus  came  to  regard  them  as  not  merely  beyond, 
but  above,  Nature. 

Hence  arose  the  conception  of  a  "  Supernature  " 
antithetic  to  "  Nature  " — the  primitive  dualism  of 
a  natural  world  "  fixed  in  fate "  and  a  super- 
natural, left  to  the  free  play  of  volition — which 
has  pervaded  all  later  speculation  and,  for  thou- 
sands of  years,  has  exercised  a  profound  influence 
on  practice.  For  it  is  obvious  that,  on  this  theory 
of  the  Universe,  the  successful  conduct  of  life 
must  demand  careful  attention  to  both  worlds ; 
and,  if  either  is  to  be  neglected,  it  may  be  safer 
that  it  should  be  Nature.  In  any  given  contin- 
gency, it  must  doubtless  be  desirable  to  know 
what  may  be  expected  to  happen  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  things ;  but  it  must  be  quite  as 
necessary  to  have  some  inkling  of  the  line  likely 
to  be  taken  by  supernatural  agencies  able,  and 
possibly  willing,  to  suspend  or  reverse  that  course. 
Indeed,  logically  developed,  the  dualistic  theory 


I  PROLOGUE  5 

must  needs  end  in  almost  exclusive  attention  to 
Supernature,  and  in  trust  that  its  over-ruling 
strength  will  be  exerted  in  favour  of  those  who 
stand  well  with  its  denizens.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  lessons  of  the  great  schoolmaster,  experience, 
have  hardly  seemed  to  accord  with  this  conclusion. 
They  have  taught,  with  considerable  emphasis, 
that  it  does  not  answer  to  neglect  Nature  ;  and 
that,  on  the  whole,  the  more  attention  paid  to  her 
dictates  the  better  men  fare. 

Thus  the  theoretical  antithesis  brought  about 
a  practical  antagonism.  From  the  earliest  times 
of  which  we  have  any  knowledge,  Naturalism 
and  Supernatural  ism  have  consciously,  or  uncon- 
sciously, competed  and  struggled  with  one  an- 
other; and  the  varying  fortunes  of  the  contest 
are  written  in  the  records  of  the  course  of  civili- 
sation, from  those  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  six 
thousand  years  ago,  down  to  those  of  our  own 
time  and  people. 

These  records  inform  us  that,  so  far  as  men 
have  paid  attention  to  Nature,  they  have  been 
rewarded  for  their  pains.  They  have  developed 
the  Arts  which  have  furnished  the  conditions  of 
civilised  existence ;  and  the  Sciences,  which  have 
been  a  progressive  revelation  of  reality  and  have 
afforded  the  best  discipline  of  the  mind  in  the 
methods  of  discovering  truth.  They  have  accumu- 
lated a  vast  body  of  universally  accepted  know- 
ledge ;  and  the  conceptions  of  man  and  of  society, 


6  PKOLOGUE  I 

of  morals  and  of  law,  based  upon  that  knowledge, 
are  every  day  more  and  more,  either  openly  or 
tacitly,  acknowledged  to  be  the  foundations  of 
right  action. 

History  also  tells  us  that  the  field  of  the 
supernatural  has  rewarded  its  cultivators  with  a 
harvest,  perhaps  not  less  luxuriant,  but  of  a 
different  character.  It  has  produced  an  almost 
infinite  diversity  of  Religions.  These,  if  we  set 
aside  the  ethical  concomitants  upon  which  natural 
knowledge  also  has  a  claim,  are  composed  of 
information  about  Supernature  ;  they  tell  us  of 
the  attributes  of  supernatural  beings,  of  their 
relations  with  Nature,  and  of  the  operations  by 
which  their  interference  with  the  ordinary  course 
of  events  can  be  secured  or  averted.  It  does 
not.  appear,  however,  that  supernaturalists  have 
attained  to  any  agreement  about  these  matters,  or 
that  history  indicates  a  widening  of  the  influence 
of  supernaturalism  on  practice,  with  the  onward 
flow  of  time.  On  the  contrary,  the  various 
religions  are,  to  a  great  extent,  mutually  ex- 
clusive ;  and  their  adherents  delight  in  charging 
each  other,  not  merely  with  error,  but  with 
criminality,  deserving  and  ensuing  punishment 
of  infinite  severity.  In  singular  contrast  with 
natural  knowledge,  again,  the  acquaintance  of 
mankind  with  the  supernatural  appears  the  more 
extensive  and  the  more  exact,  and  the  influence 
of  supernatural  doctrines  upon  conduct  the  greater, 


I  PROLOGUE  7 

the  further  back  we  go  in  time  and  the  lower  the 
stage  of  civilisation  submitted  to  investigation. 
Historically,  indeed,  there  would  seem  to  be  an 
inverse  relation  between  supernatural  and  natural 
knowledge.  As  the  latter  has  widened,  gained  in 
precision  and  in  trustworthiness,  so  has  the 
former  shrunk,  grown  vague  and  questionable  ;  as 
the  one  has  more  and  more  filled  the  sphere  of 
action,  so  has  the  other  retreated  into  the  region 
of  meditation,  or  vanished  behind  the  screen  of 
mere  verbal  recognition. 

Whether  this  difference  of  the  fortunes  of 
Naturalism  and  of  Supernaturalism  is  an  indica- 
tion of  the  progress,  or  of  the  regress,  of 
humanity ;  of  a  fall  from,  or  an  advance  towards, 
the  higher  life ;  is  a  matter  of  opinion.  The  point 
to  which  I  wish  to  direct  attention  is  that  the 
difference  exists  and  is  making  itself  felt.  Men 
are  growing  to  be  seriously  alive  to  the  fact  that 
the  historical  evolution  of  humanity,  which  is 
generally,  and  I  venture  to  think  not  unreason- 
ably, regarded  as  progress,  has  been,  and  is  being, 
accompanied  by  a  co-ordinate  elimination  of  the 
supernatural  from  its  originally  large  occupation  of 
men's  thoughts.  The  question — How  far  is  this 
process  to  go  ? — is,  in  my  apprehension,  the 
Controverted  Question  of  our  time. 

Controversy  on  this  matter — prolonged,  bitter, 
and  fought  out  with  the  weapons  of  the  flesh,  as 


8  PROLOGUE  i 

well  as  with  those  of  the  spirit — is  no  new  thing 
to  Englishmen.  We  have  been  more  or  less 
occupied  with  it  these  five  hundred  years.  And, 
during  that  time,  we  have  made  attempts  to 
establish  a  modus  vivcndi  between  the  antagonists, 
some  of  which  have  had  a  world-wide  influence  ; 
though,  unfortunately,  none  have  proved  univers- 
ally and  permanently  satisfactory. 

In  the  fourteenth  century,  the  controverted 
question  among  us  was,  whether  certain  portions 
of  the  Supernaturalism  of  mediaeval  Christianity 
were  well-founded.  John  Wicliff  proposed  a 
solution  of  the  problem  which,  in  the  course  of 
the  following  two  hundred  jeaxs,  acquired  wide 
popularity  and  vast  historical  importance  :  Lollards, 
Hussites,  Lutherans,  Calvinists,  Zwinglians,  Sucin- 
ians,  and  Anabaptists,  whatever  their  disagree- 
ments, concurred  in  the  proposal  to  reduce  the 
Supernaturalism  of  Christianity  within  the  limits 
sanctioned  by  the  Scriptures.  None  of  the  chiefs 
of  Protestantism  called  in  question  either  the 
supernatural  origin  and  infallible  authority  of  the 
Bible,  or  the  exactitude  of  the  account  of  the 
supernatural  world  given  in  its  pages.  In  fact, 
they  could  not  afford  to  entertain  any  doubt 
about  these  points,  since  the  infallible  Bible  was 
the  fulcrum  of  the  lever  with  which  they  were 
endeavouring  to  upset  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter. 
The  "freedom  of  private  judgment"  which  they 
proclaimed,    meant    no    more,    in    practice,   than 


I  PROLOGUE  9 

permission  to  themselves  to  make  free  with  the 
public  judgment  of  the  Roman  Church,  in  respect 
of  the  canon  and  of  the  meaning  to  be  attached 
to  the  words  of  the  canonical  books.  Private 
judgment — that  is  to  say,  reason — was  (theoreti- 
cally, at  auy  rate)  at  liberty  to  decide  what  books 
were  and  what  were  not  to  take  the  rank  of 
"  Scripture  "  ;  and  to  determine  the  sense  of  any 
passage  in  such  books.  But  this  sense,  once 
ascertained  to  the  mind  of  the  sectary,  was  to  be 
taken  for  pure  truth — for  the  very  word  of  God. 
The  controversial  efficiency  of  the  principle  of 
biblical  infallibility  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  con- 
servative adversaries  of  the  Reformers  were  not  in 
a  position  to  contravene  it  without  entangling 
themselves  in  serious  difficulties  ;  while,  since 
both  Papists  and  Protestants  agreed  in  taking 
efficient  measures  to  stop  the  mouths  of  any  more 
mdical  critics,  these  did  not  count. 

The  impotence  of  their  adversaries,  however,  did 
not  remove  the  inherent  weakness  of  the  position 
of  the  Protestants.  The  dogma  of  the  infallibility 
of  the  Bible  is  no  more  self-evident  than  is  that 
of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope.  If  the  former  is 
held  by  "  faith,"  then  the  latter  may  be.  If  the 
latter  is  to  be  accepted,  or  rejected,  by  private 
judgment,  why  not  the  former?  Even  if  the 
Bible  could  be  proved  anywhere  to  assert  its  own 
infallibility,  the  value  of  that  self-assertion  to 
those  who  dispute  the  point  is  not  obvious.     On 


10  PROLOGUE  I 

the  other  hand,  if  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible 
was  rested  on  that  of  a  "  primitive  Church,"  the 
admission  that  the  "  Church "  was  formerly 
iofallible  was  awkward  in  the  extreme  for  those 
who  denied  its  present  infallibility.  Moreover,  no 
sooner  was  the  Protestant  principle  applied  to 
practice,  than  it  became  evident  that  even  an 
infallible  text,  when  manipulated  by  private 
judgment,  will  impartially  countenance  contra- 
dictory deductions  ;  and  furnish  forth  creeds  and 
confessions  as  diverse  as  the  quality  and  the 
information  of  the  intellects  which  exercise,  and 
the  prejudices  and  passions  which  sway,  such 
judgments.  Every  sect,  confident  in  the  deriva- 
tive infallibility  of  its  wire-drawing  of  infallible 
materials,  was  ready  to  supply  its  contingent  of 
martyrs  ;  and  to  enable  history,  once  more,  to 
illustrate  the  truth,  that  steadfastness  under 
persecution  says  much  for  the  sincerity  and  still 
more  for  the  tenacity,  of  the  believer,  but  very 
little  for  the  objective  truth  of  that  which  he 
believes.  No  martyrs  have  sealed  their  faith 
with  their  blood  more  steadfastly  than  the 
Anabaptists. 

Last,  bat  not  least,  the  Protestant  principle 
contained  within  itself  the  germs  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  finality,  which  the  Lutheran,  Calvin- 
istic,  and  other  Protestant  Churches  fondly 
imagined  they  had  reached.  Since  their  creeds 
were  professedly  based  on  the  canonical  Scriptures, 


I  PROLOGUE  11 

it  followed  that,  in  the  long  run,  whoso  settled 
the  canon  defined  the  creed.  If  the  private 
judgment  of  Luther  might  legitimately  conclude 
that  the  epistle  of  James  was  contemptible,  while 
the  epistles  of  Paul  contained  the  very  essence  of 
Christianity,  it  must  be  permissible  for  some 
other  private  judgment,  on  as  good  or  as  bad 
grounds,  to  reverse  these  conclusions ;  the  critical 
process  which  excluded  the  Apocrypha  could  not 
be  barred,  at  any  rate  by  people  who  rejected 
the  authority  of  the  Church,  from  extending  its 
operations  to  Daniel,  the  Canticles,  and  Ecclesi- 
astes ;  nor,  having  got  so  far,  was  it  easy  to  allege 
any  good  ground  for  staying  the  further  progress 
of  criticism.  In  fact,  the  logical  development  of 
Protestantism  could  not  fail  to  lay  the  authority 
of  the  Scriptures  at  the  feet  of  Reason  ;  and, 
in  the  hands  of  latitudinarian  and  rationalistic 
theologians,  the  despotism  of  the  Bible  was 
rapidly  converted  into  an  extremely  limited 
monarchy.  Treated  with  as  much  respect  as 
ever,  the  sphere  of  its  practical  authority  was 
minimised ;  and  its  decrees  were  valid  only  so  far 
as  they  were  countersigned  by  common  sense,  the 
responsible  minister. 

The  champions  of  Protestantism  are  much 
given  to  glorify  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century  as  the  emancipation  of  Reason  ;  but  it 
may  be  doubted  if  their  contention  has  any  solid 
giound ;  while  there  is  a  good  deal  of  evidence  to 


12  PKOLOGUE  I 

show,  that  aspirations  after  intellectual  freedom 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  movement. 
Dante,  who  struck  the  Papacy  as  hard  blows  as 
Wicliff;  Wicliff  himself  and  Luther  himself,  when 
they  began  their  work  ;  were  far  enough  from 
any  intention  of  meddling  with  even  the  most 
irrational  of  the  dogmas  of  mediaeval  Super- 
naturalism.  From  Wicliff  to  Socinus,  or  even  to 
Miinzer,  Rothmann,  and  John  of  Leyden,  I  fail  to 
find  a  trace  of  any  desire  to  set  reason  free.  The 
most  that  can  be  discovered  is  a  proposal  to 
change  masters.  From  being  the  slave  of  the 
Papacy  the  intellect  was  to  become  the  serf  of  the 
Bible  ;  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  of  somebody's 
interpretation  of  the  Bible,  which,  rapidly  shifting 
its  attitude  from  the  humility  of  a  private  judg- 
ment to  the  arrogant  Cassaro -papistry  of  a  state- 
enforced  creed,  had  no  more  hesitation  about 
forcibly  extinguishing  opponent  private  judgments 
and  judges,  than  had  the  old-fashioned  Pontiff- 
papistry. 

It  was  the  iniquities,  and  not  the  irrationalities, 
of  the  Papal  system  that  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the 
revolt  of  the  laity ;  which  was,  essentially,  an 
attempt  to  shake  off  the  intolerable  burden  of 
certain  practical  deductions  from  a  Supernatural- 
ism  in  which  everybody,  in  principle,  acquiesced. 
What  was  the  gain  to  intellectual  freedom  of 
abolishing  transubstantiation,  image  worship,  in- 
dulgences,  ecclesiastical    infallibility;   if  consub- 


I  PROLOGUE  13 

stantiation,  real-unreal  presence  mystifications, 
the  bibliolatry,  the  "  inner- light  "  pretensions,  and 
the  demonology,  which  are  fruits  of  the  same 
supernaturalistic  tree,  remained  in  enjoyment  of 
the  spiritual  and  temporal  support  of  a  new 
infallibility  ?  One  does  not  free  a  prisoner  by 
merely  scraping  away  the  rust  from  his  shackles. 

It  will  be  asked,  perhaps,  was  not  the  Reforma- 
tion one  of  the  products  of  that  great  outbreak  of 
many-sided  free  mental  activity  included  under 
the  general  head  of  the  Renascence  ?  Melanch- 
thon,  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  Beza,  wTere  they  not  all 
humanists  ?  Was  not  the  arch-humanist,  Erasmus, 
fautor-in-chief  of  the  Reformation,  until  he  got 
frightened  and  basely  deserted  it  ? 

From  the  language  of  Protestant  historians,  it 
would  seem  that  they  often  forget  that  Reforma- 
tion and  Protestantism  are  by  no  means  con- 
vertible terms.  There  were  plenty  of  sincere  and 
indeed  zealous  reformers,  before,  during,  and 
after  the  birth  and  growth  of  Protestantism,  who 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Assuredly, 
the  rejuvenescence  of  science  and  of  art;  the 
widening  of  the  field  of  Nature  by  geographical 
and  astronomical  discovery ;  the  revelation  of  the 
noble  ideals  of  antique  literature  by  the  revival  of 
classical  learning  ;  the  stir  of  thought,  throughout 
all  classes  of  society,  by  the  printers'  work, 
loosened  traditional  bonds  and  weakened  the  hold 
of  mediaeval   Supernaturalism.     In  the  interests 


14  PROLOGUE  i 

of  liberal  culture  and  of  national  welfare,  the 
humanists  were  eager  to  lend  a  hand  to  anything 
which  tended  to  the  discomfiture  of  their  sworn 
enemies,  the  monks,  and  they  willingly  supported 
every  movement  in  the  direction  of  weakening 
ecclesiastical  interference  with  civil  life.  But  the 
bond  of  a  common  enemy  was  the  only  real  tie 
between  the  humanist  and  the  protestant ;  their 
alliance  was  bound  to  be  of  short  duration,  and, 
sooner  or  later,  to  be  replaced  by  internecine 
warfare.  The  goal  of  the  humanists,  whether 
they  were  aware  of  it  or  not,  was  the  attainment 
of  the  complete  intellectual  freedom  of  the 
antique  philosopher,  than  which  nothing  could  be 
more  abhorrent  to  a  Luther,  a  Calvin,  a  Beza,  or 
a  Zwingli. 

The  key  to  the  comprehension  of  the  conduct 
of  Erasmus,  seems  to  me  to  lie  in  the  clear  appre- 
hension of  this  fact.  That  he  was  a  man  of  many 
weaknesses  may  be  true ;  in  fact,  he  was  quite 
aware  of  them  and  professed  himself  no  hero. 
But  he  never  deserted  that  reformatory  move- 
ment which  he  originally  contemplated  ;  and  it 
was  impossible  he  should  have  deserted  the 
specifically  Protestant  reformation  in  which  he 
never  took  part.  He  was  essentially  a  theological 
whig,  to  whom  radicalism  was  as  hateful  as  it  is 
to  all  whigs  ;  or,  to  borrow  a  still  more  appropriate 
comparison  from  modern  times,  a  broad  church- 
man who  refused  to  enlist  with  either  the  High 


I     .  PROLOGUE  15 

Church  or  the  Low  Church  zealots,  and  paid  the 
penalty  of  being  called  coward,  time-server  and 
traitor,  by  both.  Yet  really  there  is  a  good  deal 
in  his  pathetic  remonstrance  that  he  does  not  see 
why  he  is  bound  to  become  a  martyr  for  that  in 
which  he  does  not  believe  ;  and  a  fair  consideration 
of  the  circumstances  and  the  consequences  of  the 
Protestant  reformation  seems  to  me  to  go  a  long 
way  towards  justifying  the  course  he  adopted. 

Few  men  had  better  means  of  being  acquainted 
with  the  condition  of  Europe  ;  none  could  be  more 
competent  to  gauge  the  intellectual  shallowness 
and  self-contradiction  of  the  Protestant  criticism 
of  Catholic  doctrine ;  and  to  estimate,  at  its  proper 
value,  the  fond  imagination  that  the  waters  let 
out  by  the  Renascence  would  come  to  rest  amidst 
the  blind  alleys  of  the  new  ecclesiasticism.  The 
bastard,  whilom  poor  student  and  monk,  become 
the  familiar  of  bishops  and  princes,  at  home  in  all 
grades  of  society,  could  not  fail  to  be  aware  of  the 
gravity  of  the  social  position,  of  the  dangers 
imminent  from  the  profligacy  and  indifference  of 
the  ruling  classes,  no  less  than  from  the  anarchical 
tendencies  of  the  people  who  groaned  under 
their  oppression.  The  wanderer  who  had  lived 
in  Germany,  in  France,  in  England,  in  Italy,  and 
who  counted  many  of  the  best  and  most  influen- 
tial men  in  each  country  among  his  friends,  was 
not  likely  to  estimate  wrongly  the  enormous 
forces  which  were  still  at  the  command  of  the 
117 


16  PROLOGUE  i 

Papacy.  Bad  as  the  churchmen  might  be,  the 
statesmen  were  worse  ;  and  a  person  of  far  more 
sanguine  temperament  than  Erasmus  might  have 
seen  no  hope  for  the  future,  except  in  gradually 
freeing  the  ubiquitous  organisation  of  the  Church 
from  the  corruptions  which  alone,  as  he  imagined, 
prevented  it  from  being  as  beneficent  as  it  was 
powerful.  The  broad  tolerance  of  the  scholar  and 
man  of  the  world  might  well  be  revolted  by  the 
ruffianism,  however  genial,  of  one  great  light  of 
Protestantism,  and  the  narrow  fanaticism,  however 
learned  and  logical,  of  others  ;  and  to  a  cautious 
thinker,  by  whom,  whatever  his  shortcomings,  the 
ethical  ideal  of  the  Christian  evangel  was  sin- 
cerely prized,  it  really  was  a  fair  question, 
whether  it  was  worth  while  to  bring  about  a 
political  and  social  deluge,  the  eud  of  which  no 
mortal  could  foresee,  for  the  purpose  of  setting  up 
Lutheran,  Zwinglian,  and  other  Peterkins,  in  the 
place  of  the  actual  claimant  to  the  reversion  of 
the  spiritual  wealth  of  the  Galilean  fisherman. 

Let  us  suppose  that,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Lutheran  and  Zwinglian  movement,  a  vision  of  its 
immediate  consequences  had  been  granted  to 
Erasmus;  imagine  that  to  the  spectre  of  the 
fierce  outbreak  of  Anabaptist  communism,  which 
opened  the  apocalypse,  had  succeeded,  in  shadowy 
procession,  the  reign  of  terror  and  of  spoliation  in 
England,  with  the  judicial  murders  of  his  friends, 
More  and  Fisher ;  the  bitter  tyranny  of  evangel- 


I  PROLOGUE  17 

istic  clericalism  in  Geneva  and  in  Scotland  ;  the 
long  agony  of  religious  wars,  persecutions,  and 
massacres,  which  devastated  France  and  reduced 
Germany  almost  to  savagery ;  finishing  with  the 
spectacle  of  Lutheranism  in  its  native  country 
sunk  into  mere  dead  Erastian  formalism,  before 
it  was  a  century  old ;  while  Jesuitry  triumphed 
over  Protestantism  in  three-fourths  of  Europe, 
bringing  in  its  train  a  recrudescence  of  all  the 
corruptions  Erasmus  and  his  friends  sought  to 
abolish ;  might  not  he  have  quite  honestly 
thought  this  a  somewhat  too  heavy  price  to  pay 
for  Protestantism ;  more  especially,  since  no  one 
was  in  a  better  position  than  himself  to  know 
how  little  the  dogmatic  foundation  of  the  new 
confessions  was  able  to  bear  the  light  which  the 
inevitable  progress  of  humanistic  criticism  would 
throw  upon  them  ?  As  the  wiser  of  his  contem- 
poraries saw,  Erasmus  was,  at  heart,  neither 
Protestant  nor  Papist,  but  an  "  Independent 
Christian " ;  and,  as  the  wiser  of  his  modern 
biographers  have  discerned,  he  was  the  precursor, 
not  of  sixteenth  century  reform,  but  of  eighteenth 
century  "  enlightenment  "  ;  a  sort  of  broad- church 
Voltaire,  who  held  by  his  "  Independent  Christian- 
ity "  as  stoutly  as  Voltaire  by  his  Deism. 

In  fact,  the  stream  of  the  Renascence,  which 
bore  Erasmus  along,  left  Protestantism  stranded 
amidst  the  mudbanks  of  its  articles  and  creeds : 
while  its  true  course  became  visible  to  all  men, 


18  PROLOGUE  i 

two  centuries  later.  By  this  time,  those  in  whom 
the  movement  of  the  Renascence  was  incarnate 
became  aware  what  spirit  they  were  of ;  and  they 
attacked  Supernaturalism  in  its  Biblical  strong- 
hold, defended  by  Protestants  and  Romanists 
with  equal  zeal.  In  the  eyes  of  the  "  Patriarch," 
Ultramontanism,  Jansenism,  and  Calvinism  were 
merely  three  persons  of  the  one  "  Infame  "  which 
it  was  the  object  of  his  life  to  crush.  If  he 
hated  one  more  than  another,  it  was  probably  the 
last ;  while  D'Holbach,  and  the  extreme  left  of 
the  free-thinking  host,  were  disposed  to  show  no 
more  mercy  to  Deism  and  Pantheism. 

The  sceptical  insurrection  of  the  eighteenth 
century  made  a  terrific  noise  and  frightened  not 
a  few  worthy  people  out  of  their  wits  ;  but  cool 
judges  might  have  foreseen,  at  the  outset,  that 
the  efforts  of  the  later  rebels  were  no  more  likely 
than  those  of  the  earlier,  to  furnish  permanent 
resting-places  for  the  spirit  of  scientific  inquiry. 
However  worthy  of  admiration  may  be  the  acute- 
ness,  the  common  sense,  the  wit,  the  broad 
humanity,  which  abound  in  the  writings  of  the 
best  of  the  free-thinkers ;  there  is  rarely  much  to 
be  said  for  their  work  as  an  example  of  the 
adequate  treatment  of  a  grave  and  difficult  in- 
vestigation. I  do  not  think  any  impartial  judge 
will  assert  that,  from  this  point  of  view,  they  are 
much  better  than  their  adversaries.  It  must  be 
admitted   that  they  share  to  the  full   the   fatal 


I  PROLOGUE  10 

weakness  of  a  priori  philosophising,  no  less  than 
the  moral  frivolity  common  to  their  age  ;  while  a 
singular  want  of  appreciation  of  history,  as  the 
record  of  the  moral  and  social  evolution  of  the 
human  race,  permitted  them  to  resort  to  -pre- 
posterous theories  of  imposture,  in  order  to 
account  for  the  religious  phenomena  which  are 
natural  products  of  that  evolution. 

For  the  most  part,  the  Romanist  and  Protestant 
adversaries  of  the  free-thinkers  met  them  with 
arguments  no  better  than  their  own ;  and  with 
vituperation,  so  far  inferior  that  it  lacked  the  wit. 
But  one  great  Christian  Apologist  fairly  captured 
the  guns  of  the  free-thinking  array,  and  turned 
their  batteries  upon  themselves.  Speculative 
"  infidelity  *  of  the  eighteenth  century  type  was 
mortally  wounded  by  the  Analogy ;  while  the  pro- 
gress of  the  historical  and  psychological  sciences 
brought  to  light  the  important  part  played  by  the 
mythopceic  faculty;  and,  by  demonstrating  the 
extreme  readiness  of  men  to  impose  upon  them- 
selves, rendered  the  calling  in  of  sacerdotal 
cooperation,  in  most  cases,  a  superfluity. 

Again,  as  in  the  fourteenth  and  the  sixteenth 
centuries,  social  and  political  influences  came  into 
play.  The  free-thinking  philosop?tes,  who  objected 
to  Rousseau's  sentimental  religiosity  almost  as 
much  as  they  did  to  Ulnfdme,  were  credited  with 
the  responsibility  for  all  the  evil  deeds  of 
Rousseau's  Jacobin  disciples,  with  about  as  much 


20  PROLOGUE  I 

justification  as  Wicliff  was  held  responsible  for  the 
Peasants'  revolt,  or  Luther  for  the  Buuem-krieg. 
In  England,  though  our  ancien  regime  was  not 
altogether  lovely,  the  social  edifice  was  never  in 
such  a  bad  way  as  in  France ;  it  was  still  capable 
of  being  repaired  ;  and  our  forefathers,  very  wisely, 
preferred  to  wait  until  that  operation  could  be 
safely  performed,  rather  than  pull  it  all  down 
about  their  ears,  in  order  to  build  a  philosophically 
planned  house  on  brand-new  speculative  founda- 
tions. Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  not 
wonderful  that,  in  this  country,  practical  men 
preferred  the  gospel  of  Wesley  and  Whitfield  to 
that  of  Jean  Jacques;  while  enough  of  the  old 
leaven  of  Puritanism  remained  to  ensure  the 
favour  and  support  of  a  large  number  of  religious 
men  to  a  revival  of  evangelical  supernaturalism. 
Thus,  by  degrees,  the  free -thinking,  or  the  indif- 
ference, prevalent  among  us  in  the  first  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  was  replaced  by  a  strong 
supernaturalistic  reaction,  which  submerged  the 
work  of  the  free-thinkers ;  and  even  seemed,  for 
a  time,  to  have  arrested  the  naturalistic  movement 
of  which  that  work  was  an  imperfect  indication. 
Yet,  like  Lollardry,  four  centuries  earlier,  free- 
thought  merely  took  to  running  underground, 
safe,  sooner  or  later,  to  return  to  the  surface. 

My  memory, unfortunately,  carries  me  back  to  the 
fourth  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the 


I  PEOLOGUE  21 

evangelical  flood  had  a  little  abated  and  the  tops 
of  certain  mountains  were  soon  to  appear,  chiefly 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Oxford ;  but  when  never- 
theless, bibliolatry  was  rampant;  when  church 
and  chapel  alike  proclaimed,  as  the  oracles  of  Qod, 
the  crude  assumptions  of  the  worst  informed  and, 
in  natural  sequence,  the  most  presumptuously 
bigoted,   of  all  theological  schools. 

In  accordance  with  promises  made  on  my 
behalf,  but  certainly  without  my  authorisation,  I 
was  very  early  taken  to  hear  "sermons  in  the 
vulgar  tongue."  And  vulgar  enough  often  was 
the  tongue  in  which  some  preacher,  ignorant  alike 
of  literature,  of  history,  of  science,  and  even  of 
theology,  outside  that  patronised  by  his  own 
narrow  schoo1,  poured  forth,  from  the  safe 
entrenchment  of  the  pulpit,  invectives  against 
those  who  deviated  from  his  notion  of  orthodoxy. 
From  dark  allusions  to  "  sceptics  "  and  "  infidels," 
I  became  aware  of  the  existence  of  people  who 
trusted  in  carnal  reason ;  who  audaciously  doubted 
that  the  world  was  made  in  six  natural  days,  or 
that  the  deluge  was  universal ;  perhaps  even  went 
so  far  as  to  question  the  literal  accuracy  of  the 
story  of  Eve's  temptation,  or  of  Balaam's  ass ;  and, 
from'  the  horror  of  the  tones  in  which  they  were 
mentioned,  I  should  have  been  justified  in  drawing 
the  conclusion  that  these  rash  men  belonged  to  the 
criminal  classes.  At  the  same  time,  those  who 
were  more  directly  responsible  for  providing  me 


22  PROLOGUE  i 

with  the  knowledge  essential  to  the  right 
guidance  of  life  (and  who  sincerely  desired  to  do 
so),  imagined  they  were  discharging  that  most 
sacred  duty  by  impressing  upon  my  childish  mind 
the  necessity,  on  pain  of  reprobation  in  this  world 
and  damnation  in  the  next,  of  accepting,  in  the 
strict  and  literal  sense,  every  statement  contained 
in  the  Protestant  Bible.  I  was  told  to  believe, 
and  I  did  believe,  that  doubt  about  any  of  them 
was  a  sin,  not  less  reprehensible  than  a  moral 
delict.  I  suppose  that,  out  of  a  thousand  of  my 
contemporaries,  nine  hundred,  at  least,  had  their 
minds  systematically  warped  and  poisoned,  in  the 
name  of  the  God  of  truth,  by  like  discipline.  I  am 
sure  that,  even  a  score  of  years  later,  those  who 
ventured  to  question  the  exact  historical  accuracy 
of  any  part  of  the  Old  Testament  and  a  fortiori  of 
the  Gospels,  had  to  expect  a  pitiless  shower  of 
verbal  missiles,  to  say  nothing  of  the  other  dis- 
agreeable consequences  which  visit  those  who,  in 
any  way,  run  counter  to  that  chaos  of  prejudices 
called  public  opinion. 

My  recollections  of  this  time  have  recently  been 
revived  by  the  perusal  of  a  remarkable  document, x 
signed  by  as  many  as  thirty-eight  out  of  the 
twenty  odd  thousand  clergymen  of  the  Established 
Church.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  signataries 
are  officially  accredited  spokesmen  of  the  ecclesias- 

1  Declaration  on  the  Truth  of  Eoly  Scripture.  The  Times, 
18th  December,  1891. 


I  PROLOGUE  23 

tical  corporation  to  which  they  belong ;  but  I  feel 
bound  to  take  their  word  for  it,  that  they  are 
"  stewards  of  the  Lord,  who  have  received  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  and,  therefore,  to  accept  this  memorial  as 
evidence  that,  though  the  Evangelicism  of  my  early 
days  may  be  deposed  from  its  place  of  power, 
though  so  many  of  the  colleagues  of  the  thirty-eight 
even  repudiate  the  title  of  Protestants,  yet  the 
green  bay  tree  of  bibliolatry  flourishes  as  it  did  sixty 
years  ago.  And,  as  in  those  good  old  times,  whoso 
refuses  to  offer  iucense  to  the  idol  is  held  to  be  guilty 
of  "  a  dishonour  to  God,"  imperillirjg  his  salvation. 
It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  perspicacity  of  the 
memorialists  that  they  discern  the  real  nature  of 
the  Controverted  Question  of  the  age.  They  are 
awake  to  the  unquestionable  fact  that,  if  Scripture 
has  been  discovered  "  not  to  be  worthy  of  un- 
questioning belief,"  faith  "in  the  supernatural 
itself"  is,  so  far,  undermined.  And  I  may  con- 
gratulate myself  upon  such  weighty  confirmation 
of  an  opinion  in  which  I  have  had  the  fortune  to 
anticipate  them.  But  whether  it  is  more  to  the 
credit  of  the  courage,  than  to  the  intelligence,  of 
the  thirty- eight  that  they  should  go  on  to  pro- 
claim that  the  canonical  scriptures  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  "  declare  incontrovertibly 
the  actual  historical  truth  in  all  records,  both  of 
past  events  and  of  the  delivery  of  predictions  to 
be  thereafter  fulfilled,"  must  be  left  to  the  coming 
generation  to  decide, 


24  PROLOGUE  I 

The  interest  which  attaches  to  this  singular 
document  will,  I  think,  be  based  by  most  thinking 
men,  not  upon  what  it  is,  but  upon  that  of  which 
it  is  a  sign.  It  is  an  open  secret,  that  the 
memorial  is  put  forth  as  a  counterblast  to  a 
manifestation  of  opinion  of  a  contrary  character, 
on  the  part  of  certain  members  of  the  same 
ecclesiastical  body,  who  therefore  have,  as  I 
suppose,  an  equal  right  to  declare  themselves 
"stewards  of  the  Lord  and  recipients  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  In  fact,  the  stream  of  tendency  towards 
Naturalism,  the  course  of  which  I  have  briefly 
traced,  has,  of  late  years,  flowed  so  strongly,  that 
even  the  Churches  have  begun,  I  dare  not  say  to 
drift,  but,  at  any  rate,  to  swing  at  their  moorings. 
Within  the  pale  of  the  Anglican  establishment,  I 
venture  to  doubt,  whether,  at  this  moment,  there 
are  as  many  thorough-going  defenders  of  "  plenary 
inspiration  "  as  there  were  timid  questioners  of 
that  doctrine,  half  a  century  ago.  Commentaries, 
sanctioned  by  the  highest  authority,  give  up  the 
"  actual  historical  truth "  of  the  cosmogonical 
and  diluvial  narratives.  University  professors  of 
deservedly  high  repute  accept  the  critical  decision 
that  the  Hexateuch  is  a  compilation,  in  which  the 
share  of  Moses,  either  as  author  or  as  editor,  is 
not  quite  so  clearly  demonstrable  as  it  might  be  ; 
highly  placed  Divines  tell  us  that  the  pre- 
Abrahamic  Scripture  narratives  may  be  ignored  ; 
that  the  book  of  Daniel   may  be  regarded  as  a 


I  PKOLOGUE  25 

patriotic   romance    of    the    second    century  B.C. ; 
that  the  words  of  the  writer  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
are  not  always  to  be    distinguished   from    those 
which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus.     Conser- 
vative, hut    conscientious,    revisers    decide    that 
whole   passages,  some   of  dogmatic   and  some   of 
ethical  importance,  are  interpolations.     An  uneasy 
sense  of  the  weakness   of  the  dogma  of  Biblical 
infallibility    seems   to    be    at    the    bottom    of   a 
prevailing  tendency  once  more  to  substitute  the 
authority  of  the  "  Church  "  for  that  of  the  Bible. 
In  my  old  age,  it  has  happened  to  me  to  be  taken 
to  task  for  regarding  Christianity  as  a  "religion 
of  a  book  "   as  gravely  as,  in  my  }^outh,  I  should 
have  been  reprehended  for  doubting  that  proposi- 
tion.    It  is   a  no  less  interesting  symptom  that 
the  State  Church  seems  more  and  more  anxious 
to  repudiate  all  complicity  with  the  principles  of 
the   Protestant    Reformation   and   to    call    itself 
"  Anglo-Catholic."      Inspiration,   deprived    of  its 
old   intelligible    sense,   is   watered   down   into    a 
mystification.      The    Scriptures   are,   indeed,   in- 
spired ;  but  they  contain  a  wholly  undefined  and 
indefinable  iC  human  element  "  ;  and  this  unfortu- 
nate intruder  is  converted  into  a  sort  of  biblical 
whipping  boy.    Whatsoever  scientific  investigation, 
historical  or  physical,  proves  to  be  erroneous,  the 
"  human  element "  bears  the  blame ;    while   the 
divine  inspiration  of  such  statements,  as  by  their 
nature  are  out  of  reach  of  proof  or  disproof,  is 


26  PROLOGUE  i 

still  asserted  with  all  the  vigour  inspired  by 
conscious  safety  from  attack.  Though  the  pro- 
posal to  treat  the  Bible  "  like  any  other  book  " 
which  caused  so  much  scandal,  forty  years  ago, 
may  not  yet  be  generally  accepted,  and  though 
Bishop  Colenso's  criticisms  may  still  lie,  formally, 
under  ecclesiastical  ban,  yet  the  Church  has  not 
wholly  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  voice  of  the 
scientific  tempter ;  and  many  a  coy  divine,  while 
"crying  I  will  ne'er  consent,"  has  consented  to 
the  proposals  of  that  scientific  criticism  which  the 
memorialists  renounce  and  denounce. 

A  humble  layman,  to  whom  it  would  seem  the 
height  of  presumption  to  assume  even  the  uncon- 
sidered dignity  of  a  "  steward  of  science,"  may 
well  find  this  conflict  of  apparently  equal  ecclesi- 
astical authorities  perplexing —  suggestive,  indeed, 
of  the  wisdom  of  postponing  attention  to  either, 
until  the  question  of  precedence  between  them  is 
settled.  And  this  course  will  probably  appear 
the  more  advisable,  the  more  closely  the  funda- 
mental position  of  the  memorialists  is  examined. 

"  No  opinion  of  the  fact  or  form  of  Divine 
Revelation,  founded  on  literary  criticism  [and  I 
suppose  I  may  add  historical,  or  physical,  critic- 
ism] of  the  Scriptures  themselves,  can  be  admitted 
to  interfere  with  the  traditionary  testimony  of  the 
Church,  when  that  has  been  once  ascertained  and 
verified  by  appeal  to  antiquity."  1 
1  Declaration,  Article  10. 


I  PROLOGUE  27 

Grant  that  it  is  "the  traditionary  testimony  of 
the  Church  "  which  guarantees  the  canonicity  of 
each  and  all  of  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments.  Grant  also  that  canonicity  means 
infallibility;  yet,  according  to  the  thirty-eight, 
this  "  traditionary  testimony  "  has  to  be  "  ascer- 
tained and  verified  by  appeal  to  antiquity."  But 
"  ascertainment  and  verification "  are  purely 
intellectual  processes,  which  must  be  conducted 
according  to  the  strict  rules  of  scientific  investiga- 
tion, or  be  self-convicted  of  worthlessness.  More- 
over, before  we  can  set  about  the  appeal  to 
"  antiquity,"  the  exact  sense  of  that  usefully 
vague  term  must  be  defined  by  similar  means. 
"  Antiquity "  may  include  any  number  of  centu- 
ries, great  or  small ;  and  whether  "  antiquity  "  is 
to  comprise  the  Council  of  Trent,  or  to  stop  a 
little  beyond  that  of  Nicaaa,  or  to  come  to  an 
end  in  the  time  of  Irenasus,  or  in  that  of 
Justin  Martyr,  are  knotty  questions  which  can  be 
decided,  if  at  all,  only  by  those  critical  methods 
which  the  signataries  treat  so  cavalierly.  And 
yet  the  decision  of  these  questions  is  funda- 
mental, for  as  the  limits  of  the  canonical  scrip- 
tures vary,  so  may  the  dogmas  deduced  from 
them  require  modification.  Christianity  is  one 
thing,  if  the  fourth  Gospel,  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  the  pastoral  Epistles,  and  the  Apo- 
calypse are  canonical  and  (by  the  hypothesis)  in- 
fallibly true ;  and  another  thing,  if  they  are  not. 


28  PROLOGUE  I 

As  I  have  already  said,  whoso  defines  the  canon 
defines  the  creed. 

Now  it  is  quite  certain  with  respect  to  some  of 
these  books,  such  as  the  Apocalypse  and  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  that  the  Eastern  and  the 
Western  Church  differed  in  opinion  for  centuries ; 
and  yet  neither  the  one  branch  nor  the  other  can 
have  considered  its  judgment  infallible,  since  they 
eventually  agreed  to  a  transaction  by  which  each 
gave  up  its  objection  to  the  book  patronised  by 
the  other.  Moreover,  the  "  fathers  "  argue  (in  a 
more  or  less  rational  manner)  about  the  canonicity 
of  this  or  that  book,  and  are  by  no  means  above 
producing  evidence,  internal  and  external,  in 
favour  of  the  opinions  they  advocate.  In  fact, 
imperfect  as  their  conceptions  of  scientific  method 
may  be,  they  not  unfrequently  used  it  to  the  best 
of  their  ability.  Thus  it  would  appear  that 
though  science,  like  Nature,  may  be  driven  out 
with  a  fork,  ecclesiastical  or  other,  yet  she  surely 
comes  back  again.  The  appeal  to  "  antiquity  "  is, 
in  fact,  an  appeal  to  science,  first  to  define  what 
antiquity  is  ;  secondly,  to  determine  what  "  anti- 
quity," so  defined,  says  about  canonicity ;  thirdly, 
to  prove  that  canonicity  means  infallibility.  And 
when  science,  largely  in  the  shape  of  the  abhorred 
"  criticism,"  has  answered  this  appeal,  and  has 
shown  that  "  antiquity "  used  her  own  methods, 
however  clumsily  and  imperfectly,  she  naturally 
turns  round    upon    the    appellants,  and   demands 


I  PROLOGUE  29 

that  they  should  show  cause  why,  in  these 
days,  science  should  not  resume  the  work  the 
ancients  did  so  imperfectly,  and  carry  it  out 
efficiently. 

But  no  such  cause  can  be  shown.  If  "  antiquity  " 
permitted  Eusebius,  Origen,  Tertullian,  Irenseus, 
to  argue  for  the  reception  of  this  book  into  the 
canon  and  the  rejection  of  that,  upon  rational 
grounds,  "  antiquity "  admitted  the  whole  prin- 
ciple of  modern  criticism.  If  Irenseus  produces 
ridiculous  reasons  for  limiting  the  Gospels  to  four, 
it  was  open  to  any  one  else  to  produce  good 
reasons  (if  he  had  them)  for  cutting  them  down 
to  three,  or  increasing  them  to  five.  If  the 
Eastern  branch  of  the  Church  had  a  right  to 
reject  the  Apocalypse  and  accept  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  and  the  Western  an  equal  right  to 
accept  the  Apocalypse  and  reject  the  Epistle, 
down  to  the  fourth  century,  any  other  branch 
would  have  an  equal  right,  on  cause  shown,  to 
reject  both,  or,  as  the  Catholic  Church  afterwards 
actually  did,  to  accept  both. 

Thus  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  thirty-eight 
are  hoist  with  their  own  petard.  Their  "  appeal  to 
antiquity  "  turns  out  to  be  nothing  but  a  round- 
about way  of  appealing  to  the  tribunal,  the  juris- 
diction of  which  they  affect  to  deny.  Having 
rested  the  world  of  Christian  supernaturalism  on 
the  elephant  of  biblical  infallibility,  and  furnished 
the  elephant  with  standing  ground  on  the  tortoise 


30  PROLOGUE  i 

of  "  antiquity, '  they,  like  their  famous  Hindoo 
analogue,  have  been  content  to  look  no  further  ; 
and  have  thereby  been  spared  the  horror  of  dis- 
covering that  the  tortoise  rests  on  a  grievously 
fragile  construction,  to  a  great  extent  the  work  of 
that  very  intellectual  operation  which  they  anathe- 
matise and  repudiate. 

Moreover,  there  is  another  point  to  be  considered. 
It  is  of  course  true  that  a  Christian  Church 
(whether  the  Christian  Church,  or  not,  depends  on 
the  connotation  of  the  definite  article)  existed 
before  the  Christian  scriptures ;  and  that  the  in- 
fallibility of  these  depends  upon  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  judgment  of  the  persons  who 
selected  the  books  of  which  they  are  composed, 
out  of  the  mass  of  literature  current  among  the 
early  Christians.  The  logi  cal  acumen  of  Augustine 
showed  him  that  the  authority  of  the  Gospel  he 
preached  must  rest  on  that  of  the  Church  to 
which  he  belonged.1  But  it  is  no  less  true  that 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Septuagint  versions  of  most, 
if  not  all,  of  the  Old  Testament  books  existed  be- 
fore the  birth  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ;  and  that  their 
divine  authority  is  presupposed  by,  and  therefore 
can  hardly  depend  upon,  the  religious  body  con- 
stituted by  his  disciples.  As  everybody  knows, 
the    very   conception   of    a   "  Christ "   is    purely 

1  Ego  vero  evangelio  non  crederem,  nisi  ecclesise  Catholicae 
me  commoveret  auctoritas. — Contra  Epistolam  Manichcei, 
cap.  v. 


I  PROLOGUE  31 

Jewish.  The  validity  of  the  argument  from  the 
Messianic  prophecies  vanishes  unless  their  infallible 
authority  is  granted ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
whether  we  turn  to  the  Gospels,  the  Epistles,  or 
the  writings  of  the  early  Apologists,  the  Jewish 
scriptures  are  recognised  as  the  highest  court  of 
appeal  of  the  Christian. 

The  proposal  to  cite  Christian  "  antiquity  "  as  a 
witness  to  the  infallibility  of  the  Old  Testament, 
when  its  own  claims  to  authority  vanish,  if  certain 
propositions  contained  in  the  Old  Testament  are 
erroneous,  hardly  satisfies  the  requirements  of  lay 
logic.  It  is  as  if  a  claimant  to  be  sole  legatee, 
under  another  kind  of  testament,  should  offer  his 
assertion  as  sufficient  evidence  of  the  validity  of 
the  will.  And,  even  were  not  such  a  circular,  or 
rather  rotatory,  argument,  that  the  infallibility  of 
the  Bible  is  testified  by  the  infallible  Church, 
whose  infallibility  is  testified  by  the  infallible 
Bible,  too  absurd  for  serious  consideration,  it  re- 
mains permissible  to  ask,  Where  and  when  the 
Church,  during  the  period  of  its  infallibility,  as 
limited  by  Anglican  dogmatic  necessities,  has 
officially  decreed  the  "  actual  historical  truth  of 
all  records  "  in  the  Old  Testament  ?  Was  Augus- 
tine heretical  when  he  denied  the  actual  historical 
truth  of  the  record  of  the  Creation  ?  Father 
Suarez,  standing  on  later  Roman  tradition,  may 
have  a  right  to  declare  that  he  was ;  but  it  does 
not  lie  in  the  mouth  of  those  who  limit  their 

118 


32  PROLOGUE  I 

appeal  to  that  early  "  antiquity,"  in  which  Augus- 
tine played  so  great  a  part,  to  say  so. 

Among  the  watchers  of  the  course  of  the  world 
of  thought,  some  view  with  delight  and  some  with 
horror,  the  recrudescence  of  Supernaturalism 
which  manifests  itself  among  us,  in  shapes  ranged 
along  the  whole  flight  of  steps,  which,  in  this  case, 
separates  the  sublime  from  the  ridiculous — from 
Neo-Catholicism  and  Inner-light  mysticism,  at  the 
top,  to  unclean  things,  not  worthy  of  mention  in 
the  same  breath,  at  the  bottom.  In  my  poor 
opinion,  the  importance  of  these  manifestations 
is  often  greatly  over-estimated.  The  extant  forms 
of  Supernaturalism  have  deep  roots  in  human 
nature,  and  will  undoubtedly  die  hard ;  but,  in 
these  latter  days,  they  have  to  cope  with  an 
enemy  whose  full  strength  is  only  just  beginning 
to  be  put  out,  and  whose  forces,  gathering  strength 
year  by  year,  are  hemming  them  round  on  every 
side.  This  enemy  is  Science,  in  the  acceptation  of 
systematised  natural  knowledge,  which,  during  the 
last  two  centuries,  has  extended  those  methods  of 
investigation,  the  worth  of  which  is  confirmed  by 
daily  appeal  to  Nature,  to  every  region  in  which 
the'  Supernatural  has  hitherto  been  recognised. 

When  scientific  historical  criticism  reduced  the 
annals  of  heroic  Greece  and  of  regal  Eome  to  the 
level  of  fables  ;  when  the  unity  of  authorship  of  the 
Iliad  was  successfully  assailed  by  scientific  literary 


I  PROLOGUE  33 

criticism  ;  when  scientific  physical  criticism,  after 
exploding  the  geocentric  theory  of  the  universe 
and  reducing  the  solar  system  itself  to  one  of 
millions  of  groups  of  like  cosmic  specks,  circling,  at 
unimaginable  distances  from  one  another  through 
infinite  space,  showed  the  supernaturalistic  theories 
of  the  duration  of  the  earth  and  of  life  upon  it,  to 
be  as  inadequate  as  those  of  its  relative  dimensions 
and  importance  had  been ;  it  needed  no  prophetic 
gift  to  see  that,  sooner  or  later,  the  Jewish  and 
the  early  Christian  records  would  be  treated  in 
the  same  manner  ;  that  the  authorship  of  the 
Hexateuch  and  of  the  Gospels  would  be  as  severely 
tested ;  and  that  the  evidence  in  favour  of  the 
veracity  of  many  of  the  statements  found  in  the 
Scriptures  would  have  to  be  strong  indeed,  if  they 
were  to  be  opposed  to  the  conclusions  of  physical 
science.  In  point  of  fact,  so  far  as  I  can  discover, 
no  one  competent  to  judge  of  the  evidential 
strength  of  these  conclusions,  ventures  now  to  say 
that  the  biblical  accounts  of  the  creation  and  of 
the  deluge  are  true  in  the  natural  sense  of  the 
words  of  the  narratives.  The  most  modern  Re- 
concilers venture  upon  is  to  affirm,  that  some 
quite  different  sense  may  be  put  upon  the  words ; 
and  that  this  non-natural  sense  may,  with  a  little 
trouble,  be  manipulated  into  some  sort  of  non- 
contradiction of  scientific  truth. 

My  purpose,  in  the  essay  (XVI.)  which  treats 
of  the  narrative  of  the  Deluge,  was  to  prove,  by 


34  PROLOGUE  I 

physical  criticism,  that  no  such  event  as  that 
described  ever  took  place ;  to  exhibit  the  untrust- 
worthy character  of  the  narrative  demonstrated 
by  literary  criticism  ;  and,  finally,  to  account  for 
its  origin,  by  producing  a  form  of  those  ancient 
legends  of  pagan  Chaldsea,  from  which  the  biblical 
compilation  is  manifestly  derived.  I  have  yet  to 
learn  that  the  main  propositions  of  this  essay  can 
be  seriously  challenged. 

In  the  essays  (II.,  III.)  on  the  narrative  of  the 
Creation,  I  have  endeavoured  to  controvert  the 
assertion  that  modern  science  supports,  either  the 
interpretation  put  upon  it  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  or 
any  interpretation  which  is  compatible  with  the 
general  sense  of  the  narrative,  quite  apart  from 
particular  details.  The  first  chapter  of  Genesis 
teaches  the  supernatural  creation  of  the  present 
forms  of  life ;  modern  science  teaches  that  they 
have  come  about  by  evolution.  The  first  chapter 
of  Genesis  teaches  the  successive  origin — firstly, 
of  all  the  plants,  secondly,  of  all  the  aquatic  and 
aerial  animals,  thirdly,  of  all  the  terrestrial  ani- 
mals, which  now  exist — during  distinct  intervals 
of  time ;  modern  science  teaches  that,  throughout 
all  the  duration  of  an  immensely  long  past,  so  far 
as  we  have  any  adequate  knowledge  of  it  (that  is 
as  far  back  as  the  Silurian  epoch),  plants,  aquatic, 
aerial,  and  terrestrial  animals  have  co-existed ; 
that  the  earliest  known  are  unlike  those  which  at 
present  exist ;  and  that  the  modern  species  have 


I  PROLOGUE  35 

come  into  existence  as  the  last  terms  of  a  series, 
the  members  of  which  have  appeared  one  after 
another.  Thus,  far  from  confirming  the  account 
in  Genesis,  the  results  of  modern  science,  so  far  as 
they  go,  are  in  principle,  as  in  detail,  hopelessly 
discordant  with  it. 

Yet,  if  the  pretensions  to  infallibility  set  up, 
not  by  the  ancient  Hebrew  writings  themselves, 
but  by  the  ecclesiastical  champions  and  friends 
from  whom  they  may  well  pray  to  be  delivered, 
thus  shatter  themselves  against  the  rock  of 
natural  knowledge,  in  respect  of  the  two  most 
important  of  all  events,  the  origin  of  things  and 
the  palingenesis  of  terrestrial  life,  what  historical 
credit  dare  any  serious  thinker  attach  to  the 
narratives  of  the  fabrication  of  Eve,  of  the  Fall, 
of  the  commerce  between  the  Bene  Eldhim  and 
the  daughters  of  men,  which  lie  between  the 
creational  and  the  diluvial  legends  ?  And,  if 
these  are  to  lose  all  historical  worth,  what  be- 
comes of  the  infallibility  of  those  who,  according 
to  the  later  scriptures,  have  accepted  them, 
argued  from  them,  and  staked  far-reaching  dog- 
matic conclusions  upon  their  historical  accuracy  ? 

It  is  the  merest  ostrich  policy  for  contemporary 
ecclesiasticism  to  try  to  hide  its  Hexateuchal 
head — in  the  hope  that  the  inseparable  connec- 
tion of  its  body  with  pre-Abrahamic  legends  may 
be  overlooked.  The  question  will  still  be  asked, 
if  the  first  nine  chapters  of  the  Pentateuch  are 


36  PEOLOGUE  i 

unhistorical,  how  is  the  historical  accuracy  of 
the  remainder  to  be  guaranteed  ?  What  more 
intrinsic  claim  has  the  story  of  the  Exodus  than 
that  of  the  Deluge,  to  belief?  If  God  did  not 
walk  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  how  can  we  be 
assured  that  he  spoke  from  Sinai  ? 

In  some  other  of  the  following  essays  (IX.,  X., 
XL,  XII.,  XIV.,  XV.)  I  have  endeavoured  to 
show  that  sober  and  well-founded  physical  and 
literary  criticism  plays  no  less  havoc  with  the 
doctrine  that  the  canonical  scriptures  of  the  New 
Testament  "  declare  incontrovertibly  the  actual 
historical  truth  in  all  records."  We  are  told  that 
the  Gospels  contain  a  true  revelation  of  the 
spiritual  world — a  proposition  which,  in  one  sense 
of  the  word  "spiritual,"  I  should  not  think  it 
necessary  to  dispute.  But,  when  it  is  taken  to 
signify  that  everything  we  are  told  about  the 
world  of  spirits  in  these  books  is  infallibly  true  ; 
that  we  are  bound  to  accept  the  demonology 
which  constitutes  an  inseparable  part  of  their 
teaching ;  and  to  profess  belief  in  a  Supernatural- 
ism  as  gross  as  that  of  any  primitive  people — it  is 
at  any  rate  permissible  to  ask  why  ?  Science 
may  be  unable  to  define  the  limits  of  possibility, 
but  it  cannot  escape  from  the  moral  obligation 
to  weigh  the  evidence  in  favour  of  any  alleged 
wonderful  occurrence ;  and  I  have  endeavoured  to 
show  that  the  evidence  for  the  Gadarene  miracle 


I  PROLOGUE  37 

is  altogether  worthless.  We  have  simply  three, 
partially  discrepant,  versions  of  a  story,  about  the 
primitive  form,  the  origin,  and  the  authority  for 
which  we  know  absolutely  nothing.  But  the 
evidence  in  favour  of  the  Gadarene  miracle  is  as 
good  as  that  for  any  other. 

Elsewhere,  I  have  pointed  out  that  it  is  utterly 
beside  the  mark  to  declaim  against  these  conclu- 
sions on  the  ground  of  their  asserted  tendency 
to  deprive  mankind  of  the  consolations  of  the 
Christian  faith,  and  to  destroy  the  foundations 
of  morality ;  still  less  to  brand  them  with  the 
question-begging  vituperative  appellation  of 
"  infidelity."  The  point  is  not  whether  they 
are  wicked ;  but,  whether,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  scientific  method,  they  are  irrefragably  true. 
If  they  are,  they  will  be  accepted  in  time,  whether 
they  are  wicked,  or  not  wicked.  Nature,  so  far  as 
we  have  been  able  to  attain  to  any  insight  into 
her  ways,  recks  little  about  consolation  and  makes 
for  righteousness  by  very  round-about  paths. 
And,  at  any  rate,  whatever  may  be  possible  for 
other  people,  it  is  becoming  less  and  less  possible 
for  the  man  who  puts  his  faith  in  scientific 
methods  of  ascertaining  truth,  and  is  accustomed 
to  have  that  faith  justified  by  daily  experience,  to 
be  consciously  false  to  his  principle  in  any  matter. 
But  the  number  of  such  men,  driven  into  the  use 
of  scientific  methods  of  inquiry  and  taught  to 
trust  them,  by  their  education,  their  daily  pro- 


38  PROLOGUE  i 

fessional  and  business  needs,  is  increasing  and  will 
continually  increase.  The  phraseology  of  Super- 
naturalism  may  remain  on  men's  lips,  but  in 
practice  they  are  Naturalists.  The  magistrate 
who  listens  with  devout  attention  to  the  precept 
"  Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live  "  on 
Sunday,  on  Monday,  dismisses,  as  intrinsically 
absurd,  a  charge  of  bewitching  a  cow  brought 
against  some  old  woman ;  the  superintendent  of 
a  lunatic  asylum  who  substituted  exorcism  for 
rational  modes  of  treatment  would  have  but  a 
short  tenure  of  office;  even  parish  clerks  doubt 
the  utility  of  prayers  for  rain,  so  long  as  the  wind 
is  in  the  east ;  and  an  outbreak  of  pestilence  sends 
men,  not  to  the  churches,  but  to  the  drains.  In 
spite  of  prayers  for  the  success  of  our  arms  and 
Te  Deums  for  victory,  our  real  faith  is  in  big 
battalions  and  keeping  our  powder  dry  ;  in  know- 
ledge of  the  science  of  warfare  ;  in  energy, 
courage,  and  discipline.  In  these,  as  in  all  other 
practical  affairs,  we  act  on  the  aphorism  "Zaborare 
est  orare  "  ;  we  admit  that  intelligent  work  is  the 
only  acceptable  worship  ;  and  that,  whether  there 
be  a  Supernature  or  not,  our  business  is  with 
Nature. 

It  is  important  to  note  that  the  principle  of  the 
scientific  Naturalism  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  in  which  the  intellectual  move- 
ment   of    the   Renascence    has   culminated,   and 


I  PROLOGUE  39 

which  was  first  clearly  formulated  by  Descartes, 
leads  not  to  the  denial  of  the  existence  of  any 
Supemature ; x  but  simply  to  the  denial  of  the 
validity  of  the  evidence  adduced  in  favouv  of  this, 
or  of  that,  extant  form  of  Supernaturalism. 

Looking  at  the  matter  from  the  most  rigidly 
scientific  point  of  view,  the  assumption  that, 
amidst  the  myriads  of  worlds  scattered  through 
endless  space,  there  can  be  no  intelligence,  as 
much  greater  than  man's  as  his  is  greater  than 
a  blackbeetle's  ;  no  being  endowed  with  powers  of 
influencing  the  course  of  nature  as  much  greater 
than  his,  as  his  is  greater  than  a  snail's,  seems  to 
me  not  merely  baseless,  but  impertinent.  Without 
stepping  beyond  the  analogy  of  that  which  is 
known,  it  is  easy  to  people  the  cosmos  with  entities, 
in  ascending  scale,  until  we  reach  something  prac- 
tically indistinguishable  from  omnipotence,  omni- 
presence, and  omniscience.  If  our  intelligence 
can,  in  some  matters,  surely  reproduce  the  past  of 
thousands  of  years  ago  and  anticipate  the  future, 
thousands  of  years  hence,  it  is  clearly  within  the 
limits  of  possibility  that  some  greater  intellect, 
even  of  the  same  order,  may  be  able  to  mirror  the 
whole  past  and  the  whole  future  ;  if  the  universe 

1  I  employ  the  words  "  Supemature "  and  "Supernatural" 
in  their  popular  senses.  For  myself,  I  am  bound  to  say  that 
the  term  ' '  Nature  "  covers  the  totality  of  that  which  is.  The 
world  of  psychical  phenomena  appears  to  me  to  be  as  much  part 
of  "  Nature  "  as  the  world  of  physical  phenomena  ;  and  I  am 
unable  to  perceive  any  justification  for  cutting  the  Universe 
into  two  halves,  one  natural  and  one  supernatural. 


40  PROLOGUE  i 

is  penetrated  by  a  medium  of  such  a  nature  that  a 
magnetic  needle  on  the  earth  answers  to  a 
commotion  in  the  sun,  an  omnipresent  agent  is 
also  conceivable;  if  our  insignificant  knowledge 
gives  us  some  influence  over  events,  practical 
omniscience  may  confer  indefinably  greater  power. 
Finally,  if  evidence  that  a  thing  may  be,  were 
equivalent  to  proof  that  it  is,  analogy  might  justify 
the  construction  of  a  naturalistic  theology  and 
demonology  not  less  wonderful  than  the  current 
supernatural ;  just  as  it  might  justify  the  peopling 
of  Mars,  or  of  Jupiter,  with  living  forms  to  which 
terrestrial  biology  offers  no  parallel.  Until  human 
life  is  longer  and  the  duties  of  the  present  press 
less  heavily,  I  do  not  think  that  wise  men  will  oc- 
cupy themselves  with  Jovian,  or  Martian,  natural 
history ;  and  they  will  probably  agree  to  a  verdict 
of  "  not  proven  "  in  resjDect  of  naturalistic  theology, 
taking  refuge  in  that  agnostic  confession,  which 
appears  to  me  to  be  the  only  position  for  people 
who  object  to  say  that  they  know  what  they  are 
quite  aware  they  do  not  know.  As  to  the  in- 
terests of  morality,  I  am  disposed  to  think  that 
if  mankind  could  be  got  to  act  up  to  this  last 
principle  in  every  relation  of  life,  a  reformation 
would  be  effected  such  as  the  world  has  not  yet  seen  ; 
an  approximation  to  the  millennium,  such  as  no 
supernaturalistic  religion  has  ever  yet  succeeded, 
or  seems  likely  ever  to  succeed,  in  effecting. 


I  PEOLOGUE  41 

I  have  hitherto  dwelt  upon  scientific  Naturalism 
chiefly  in  its  critical  and  destructive  aspect. 
But  the  present  incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  the 
Renascence  differs  from  its  predecessor  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  that  it  builds  up,  as  well 
as  pulls  down. 

That  of  which  it  has  laid  the  foundation,  of 
which  it  is  already  raising  the  superstructure,  is  the 
doctrine  of  evolution.  But  so  many  strange  mis- 
conceptions are  current  about  this  doctrine — it  is 
attacked  on  such  false  grounds  by  its  enemies,  and 
made  to  cover  so  much  that  is  disputable  by  some 
of  its  friends,  that  I  think  it  well  to  define  as 
clearly  as  I  can,  what  I  do  not  and  what  I  do 
understand  by  the  doctrine. 

I  have  nothing  to  say  to  any  "Philosophy  of 
Evolution."  Attempts  to  construct  such  a  phil- 
osophy may  be  as  useful,  nay,  even  as  admirable, 
as  was  the  attempt  of  Descartes  to  get  at  a  theory 
of  the  universe  by  the  same  a  priori  road ;  but,  in 
my  judgment,  they  are  as  premature.  Nor,  for 
this  purpose,  have  I  to  do  with  any  theory  of  the 
"  Origin  of  Species,"  much  as  I  value  that  which 
is  known  as  the  Darwinian  theory.  That  the 
doctrine  of  natural  selection  presupposes  evolution 
is  quite  true ;  but  it  is  not  true  that  evolution 
necessarily  implies  natural  selection.  In  fact, 
evolution  might  conceivably  have  taken  place 
without  the  development  of  groups  possessing  the 
characters  of  species. 


42  PROLOGUE  i 

For  me,  the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  no  specula- 
tion, but  a  generalisation  of  certain  facts,  which 
may  be  observed  by  any  one  who  will  take  the 
necessary  trouble.  These  facts  are  those  which 
are  classed  by  biologists  under  the  heads  of 
Embryology  and  of  Palaeontology.  Embryology 
proves  that  every  higher  form  of  individual  life 
becomes  what  it  is  by  a  process  of  gradual  differ- 
entiation from  an  extremely  low  form ;  palseonto  - 
logy  proves,  in  some  cases,  and  renders  probable  in 
all,  that  the  oldest  types  of  a  group  are  the 
lowest;  and  that  they  have  been  followed  by  a 
gradual  succession  of  more  and  more  differentiated 
forms.  It  is  simply  a  fact,  that  evolution  of  the 
individual  animal  and  plant  is  taking  place,  as  a 
natural  process,  in  millions  and  millions  of  cases 
every  day ;  it  is  a  fact,  that  the  species  which  have 
succeeded  one  another  in  the  past,  do,  in  many 
cases,  present  just  those  morphological  relations, 
which  they  must  possess,  if  they  had  proceeded, 
one  from  the  other,  by  an  analogous  process  of 
evolution. 

The  alternative  presented,  therefore,  is  :  either 
the  forms  of  one  and  the  same  type — say,  e.g.,  that 
of  the  Horse  tribe  x — arose  successively,  but  inde- 
pendently of  one  another,  at  intervals,  during 
myriads  of  years ;  or,  the  later  forms  are  modified 

1  The  general  reader  will  find  an  admirably  clear  and  concise 
statement  of  the  evidence  in  this  case,  in  Professor  Flower's 
recently  published  work  The  Horse :  a  Study  in  Natural  History. 


I  PROLOGUE  43 

descendants  of  the  earlier.  And  the  latter  sup- 
position is  so  vastly  more  probable  than  the  former, 
that  rational  men  will  adopt  it,  unless  satisfactory 
evidence  to  the  contrary  can  be  produced.  The 
objection  sometimes  put  forward,  that  no  one  yet 
professes  to  have  seen  one  species  pass  into  another, 
comes  oddly  from  those  who  believe  that  mankind 
are  all  descended  from  Adam.  Has  any  one  then  yet 
seen  the  production  of  negroes  from  a  white  stock, 
or  vice  versd  ?  Moreover,  is  it  absolutely  necessary 
to  have  watched  every  step  of  the  progress  of  a 
planet,  to  be  justified  in  concluding  that  it  really 
does  go  round  the  sun  ?  If  so,  astronomy  is  in  a 
bad  way. 

I  do  not,  for  a  moment,  presume  to  suggest  that 
some  one,  far  better  acquainted  than  I  am  with 
astronomy  and  physics ;  or  that  a  master  of  the 
new  chemistry,  with  its  extraordinary  revelations ; 
or  that  a  student  of  the  development  of  human 
society,  of  language,  and  of  religions,  may  not 
find  a  sufficient  foundation  for  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  in  these  several  regions.  On  the  contrary, 
I  rejoice  to  see  that  scientific  investigation,  in  all 
directions,  is  tending  to  the  same  result.  And  it 
may  well  be,  that  it  is  only  my  long  occupation 
with  biological  matters  that  leads  me  to  feel  safer 
among  them  than  anywhere  else.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  I  take  my  stand  on  the  facts  of  embryology 
and  of  palaeontology  ;  and  I  hold  that  our  present 
knowledge  of  these  facts  is  sufficiently  thorough 


44  PROLOGUE  I 

and  extensive  to  justify  the  assertion  that  all 
future  philosophical  and  theological  speculations 
will  have  to  accommodate  themselves  to  some  such 
common  body  of  established  truths  as  the 
following : — 

1.  Plants  and  animals  have  existed  on  our 
planet  for  many  hundred  thousand,  probably 
millions,  of  years.  During  this  time,  their  forms, 
or  species,  have  undergone  a  succession  of  changes, 
which  eventually  gave  rise  to  the  species  which 
constitute  the  present  living  population  of  the 
earth.  There  is  no  evidence,  nor  any  reason  to 
suspect,  that  this  secular  process  of  evolution  is 
other  than  a  part  of  the  ordinary  course  of  nature ; 
there  is  no  more  ground  for  imagining  the  occur- 
rence of  supernatural  intervention,  at  any  moment 
in  the  development  of  species  in  the  past,  than 
there  is  for  supposing  such  intervention  to  take 
place,  at  any  moment  in  the  development  of  an 
individual  animal  or  plant,  at  the  present  day. 

2.  At  present,  every  individual  animal  or  plant 
commences  its  existence  as  an  organism  of 
extremely  simple  anatomical  structure ;  and  it 
acquires  all  the  complexity  it  ultimately  possesses 
by  gradual  differentiation  into  parts  of  various 
structure  and  function.  When  a  series  of  specific 
forms  of  the  same  type,  extending  over  a  long 
period  of  past  time,  is  examined,  the  relation 
between  the  earlier  and  the  later  forms  is  analogous 
to  that  between  earlier  and  later  stages  of  indi- 


I  PKOLOGUE  45 

vidual  development.  Therefore,  it  is  a  probable 
conclusion  that,  if  we  could  follow  living  beings 
back  to  their  earlier  states,  we  should  find  them 
to  present  forms  similar  to  those  of  the  individual 
germ,  or,  what  comes  to  the  same  thing,  of  those 
lowest  known  organisms  which  stand  upon  the 
boundary  line  between  plants  and  animals.  At 
present,  our  knowledge  of  the  ancient  living  world 
stops  very  far  short  of  this  point. 

3.  It  is  generally  agreed,  and  there  is  certainly 
no  evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  all  plants  are 
devoid  of  consciousness ;  that  they  neither  feel, 
desire,  nor  think.  It  is  conceivable  that  the 
evolution  of  the  primordial  living  substance  should 
have  taken  place  only  along  the  plant  line.  In 
that  case,  the  result  might  have  been  a  wealth  of 
vegetable  life,  as  great,  perhaps  as  varied,  as  at 
present,  though  certainly  widely  different  from  the 
present  flora,  in  the  evolution  of  which  animals 
have  played  so  great  a  part.  But  the  living  world 
thus  constituted  would  be  simply  an  admirable 
piece  of  unconscious  machinery,  the  working  out  of 
which  lay  potentially  in  its  primitive  composition ; 
pleasure  and  pain  would  have  no  place  in  it ;  it 
would  be  a  veritable  Garden  of  Eden  without  any 
tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  The 
question  of  the  moral  government  of  such  a  world 
could  no  more  be  asked,  than  we  could  reasonably 
seek  for  a  moral  purpose  in  a  kaleidoscope. 

4.  How  far  down  the  scale  of  animal  life  fche 


46  PROLOGUE  i 

phenomena  of  consciousness  are  manifested,  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  No  one  doubts  their  presence 
in  his  fellow-men  ;  and,  unless  any  strict  Cartesians 
are  left,  no  one  doubts  that  mammals  and  birds  are 
to  be  reckoned  creatures  that  have  feelings  analo- 
gous to  our  smell,  taste,  sight,  hearing,  touch, 
pleasure,  and  pain.  For  my  own  part,  I  should 
be  disposed  to  extend  this  analogical  judgment  a 
good  deal  further.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
lowest  forms  of  plants  are  to  be  denied  conscious- 
ness, I  do  not  see  on  what  ground  it  is  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  lowest  animals.  I  find  it  hard  to 
believe  that  an  infusory  animalcule,  a  foraminifer, 
or  a  fresh -water  polype  is  capable  of  feeling ;  and, 
in  spite  of  Shakspere,  I  have  doubts  about  the 
great  sensitiveness  of  the  "poor  beetle  that  we 
tread  upon."  The  question  is  equally  perplexing 
when  we  turn  to  the  stages  of  development  of  the 
individual.  Granted  a  fowl  feels ;  that  the  chick 
just  hatched  feels ;  that  the  chick  when  it  chirps 
within  the  egg  may  possibly  feel ;  what  is  to  be 
said  of  it  on  the  fifth  day,  when  the  bird  is  there, 
but  with  all  its  tissues  nascent  ?  Still  more,  on 
the  first  day,  when  it  is  nothing  but  a  flat  cellular 
disk  ?  I  certainly  cannot  bring  myself  to  believe 
that  this  disk  feels.  Yet  if  it  does  not,  there  must 
be  some  time  in  the  three  weeks,  between  the 
first  day  and  the  day  of  hatching,  when,  as  a  con- 
comitant, or  a  consequence,  of  the  attainment  by 
the   brain  of  the   chick    of    a   certain    stage   of 


I  PROLOGUE  47 

structural  evolution,  consciousness  makes  its  ap- 
pearance. I  have  frequently  expressed  my  in- 
capacity to  understand  the  nature  of  the  relation 
between  consciousness  and  a  certain  anatomical 
tissue,  which  is  thus  established  by  observation. 
But  the  fact  remains  that,  so  far  as  observation  and 
experiment  go,  they  teach  us  that  the  psychical 
phenomena  are  dependent  on  the  physical. 

In  like  manner,  if  fishes,  insects,  scorpions,  and 
such  animals  as  the  pearly  nautilus,  possess 
feeling,  then  undoubtedly  consciousness  was  pres- 
ent in  the  world  as  far  back  as  the  Silurian 
epoch.  But,  if  the  earliest  animals  were  similar 
to  our  rhizopods  and  monads,  there  must  have 
been  some  time,  between  the  much  earlier  epoch 
in  which  they  constituted  the  whole  animal 
population  and  the  Silurian,  in  which  feeling 
dawned,  in  consequence  of  the  organism  having 
reached  the  stage  of  evolution  on  which  it 
depends. 

5.  Consciousness  has  various  forms,  which  may 
be  manifested  independently  of  one  another. 
The  feelings  of  light  and  colour,  of  sound,  of 
touch,  though  so  often  associated  with  those  of 
pleasure  and  pain,  are,  by  nature,  as  entirely 
independent  of  them  as  is  thinking.  An  animal 
devoid  of  the  feelings  of  pleasure  and  of  pain, 
may  nevertheless  exhibit  all  the  effects  of  sensa- 
tion and  purposive  action.  Therefore,  it  would  be 
a  justifiable  hypothesis   that,  long  after  organic 

119 


48  PROLOGUE  I 

evolution  had  attained  to  consciousness,  pleasure 
and  pain  were  still  absent.  Such  a  world  would 
be  without  either  happiness  or  misery;  no  act 
could  be  punished  and  none  could  be  rewarded ; 
and  it  could  have  no  moral  purpose. 

6.  Suppose,  for  argument's  sake,  that  all 
mammals  and  birds  are  subjects  of  pleasure  and 
pain.  Then  we  may  be  certain  that  these  forms 
of  consciousness  were  in  existence  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Mesozoic  epoch.  From  that  time  forth, 
pleasure  has  been  distributed  without  reference  to 
merit,  and  pain  inflicted  without  reference  to 
demerit,  throughout  all  but  a  mere  fraction  of  the 
higher  animals.  Moreover,  the  amount  and  the 
severity  of  the  pain,  no  less  than  the  variety  and 
acuteness  of  the  pleasure,  have  increased  with 
every  advance  in  the  scale  of  evolution.  As 
suffering  came  into  the  world,  not  in  consequence 
of  a  fall,  but  of  a  rise,  in  the  scale  of  being,  so 
every  further  rise  has  brought  more  suffering. 
As  the  evidence  stands,  it  would  appear  that  the 
sort  of  brain  which  characterises  the  highest 
mammals  and  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  is  the 
indispensable  condition  of  the  highest  sensibility, 
did  not  come  into  existence  before  the  Tertiary 
epoch.  The  primordial  anthropoid  was  probably,  in 
this  respect,  on  much  the  same  footing  as  his  pithe- 
coid kin.  Like  them  he  stood  upon  his  "  natural 
rights,"  gratified  all  his  desires  to  the  best  of  his 
ability,  and  was  as  incapable  of  either  right  or 


I  PKOLOGUE  49 

wrong  doing  as  they.  It  would  be  as  absurd  as  in 
their  case,  to  regard  his  pleasures,  any  more  than 
theirs,  as  moral  rewards,  and  his  pains,  any  more 
than  theirs,  as  moral  punishments. 

7.  From  the  remotest  ages  of  which  we  have 
any  cognizance,  death  has  been  the  natural  and, 
apparently,  the  necessary  concomitant  of  life.  In 
our  hypothetical  world  (3),  inhabited  by  nothing 
but  plants,  death  must  have  very  early  resulted 
from  the  struggle  for  existence :  many  of  the 
crowd  must  have  jostled  one  another  out  of  the 
conditions  on  which  life  depends.  The  occurrence 
of  death,  as  far  back  as  we  have  any  fossil  record 
of  life,  however,  needs  not  to  be  proved  by  such 
arguments ;  for,  if  there  had  been  no  death  there 
would  have  been  no  fossil  remains,  such  as  the 
great  majority  of  those  we  met  with.  Not  only 
was  there  death  in  the  world,  as  far  as  the  record 
of  life  takes  us ;  but,  ever  since  mammals  and 
birds  have  been  preyed  upon  by  carnivorous 
animals,  there  has  been  painful  death,  inflicted  by 
mechanisms  specially  adapted  for  inflicting  it. 

8.  Those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  closeness 
of  the  structural  relations  between  the  human 
organisation  and  that  of  the  mammals  which 
come  nearest  to  him,  on  the  one  hand  ;  and  with 
the  palaBontological  history  of  such  animals  as 
horses  and  dogs,  on  the  other ;  will  not  be  disposed 
to  question  the  origin  of  man  from  forms  which 
stand    in   the   same   sort   of    relation    to    Homo 


50  PKOLOGUE  I 

sapiens,  as  Hipparion  does  to  Equus.  I  think  it  a 
conclusion,  fully  justified  by  analogy,  that,  sooner 
or  later,  we  shall  discover  the  remains  of  our  less 
specialised  primatic  ancestors  in  the  strata  which 
have  yielded  the  less  specialised  equine  and 
canine  quadrupeds.  At  present,  fossil  remains  of 
men  do  not  take  us  back  further  than  the  later 
part  of  the  Quaternary  epoch ;  and,  as  was  to  be 
expected,  they  do  not  differ  more  from  existing 
men,  than  Quaternary  horses  differ  from  existing 
horses.  Still  earlier  we  find  traces  of  man,  in 
implements,  such  as  are  used  by  the  ruder  savages 
at  the  present  day.  Later,  the  remains  of  the 
palaeolithic  and  neolithic  conditions  take  us 
gradually  from  the  savage  state  to  the  civilisations 
of  Egypt  and  of  Mycense ;  though  the  true 
chronological  order  of  the  remains  actually  dis- 
covered may  be  uncertain. 

9.  Much  has  yet  to  be  learned,  but,  at  present, 
natural  knowledge  affords  no  support  to  the  notion 
that  men  have  fallen  from  a  higher  to  a  lower 
state.  On  the  contrary,  everything  points  to  a 
slow  natural  evolution ;  which,  favoured  by  the 
surrounding  conditions  in  such  localities  as  the 
valleys  of  the  Yang-tse-kang,  the  Euphrates, 
and  the  Nile,  reached  a  relatively  high  pitch,  five 
or  six  thousand  years  ago  ;  while,  in  many  other 
regions,  the  savage  condition  has  persisted  down 
to  our  day.  In  all  this  vast  lapse  of  time  there 
is  not  a  trace  of  the  occurrence  of  any  general 


I  PROLOGUE  51 

destruction  of  the  human  race ;  not  the  smallest 
indication  that  man  has  been  treated  on  any 
other  principles  than  the  rest  of  the  animal 
world. 

10.  The  results  of  the  process  of  evolution  in 
the  case  of  man,  and  in  that  of  his  more  nearly 
allied  contemporaries,  have  been  marvellously 
different.  Yet  it  is  easy  to  see  that  small  primi- 
tive differences  of  a  certain  order,  must,  in  the 
long  run,  bring  about  a  wide  divergence  of  the 
human  stock  from  the  others.  It  is  a  reasonable 
supposition  that,  in  the  earliest  human  organisms, 
an  improved  brain,  a  voice  more  capable  of 
modulation  and  articulation,  limbs  which  lent 
themselves  better  to  gesture,  a  more  perfect  hand, 
capable  among  other  things  of  imitating  form  in 
plastic  or  other  material,  were  combined  with 
the  curiosity,  the  mimetic  tendency,  the  strong 
family  affection  of  the  next  lower  group ;  and 
that  they  were  accompanied  by  exceptional  length 
of  life  and  a  prolonged  minority.  The  last  two 
peculiarities  are  obviously  calculated  to  strengthen 
the  family  organisation,  and  to  give  great  weight 
to  its  educative  influences.  The  potentiality  of 
language,  as  the  vocal  symbol  of  thought,  lay  in 
the  faculty  of  modulating  and  articulating  the 
voice.  The  potentiality  of  writing,  as  the  visual 
symbol  of  thought,  lay  in  the  hand  that  could 
draw ;  and  in  the  mimetic  tendency,  which,  as  we 
know,  was  gratified  by  drawing,  as  far  back  as  the 


52  PROLOGUE  i 

days  of  Quaternary  man.  With  speech  as  the 
record,  in  tradition,  of  the  experience  of  more 
than  one  generation ;  with  writing  as  the  record 
of  that  of  any  number  of  generations;  the 
experience  of  the  race,  tested  and  corrected 
generation  after  generation,  could  be  stored  up 
and  made  the  starting  point  for  fresh  progress. 
Having  these  perfectly  natural  factors  of  the 
evolutionary  process  in  man  before  us,  it  seems 
unnecessary  to  go  further  a-fleld  in  search  of 
others. 

11.  That  the  doctrine  of  evolution  implies  a 
former  state  of  innocence  of  mankind  is  quite 
true  ;  but,  as  I  have  remarked,  it  is  the  innocence 
of  the  ape  and  of  the  tiger,  whose  acts,  however 
they  may  run  counter  to  the  principles  of 
morality,  it  would  be  absurd  to  blame.  The  lust 
of  the  one  and  the  ferocity  of  the  other  are  as 
much  provided  for  in  their  organisation,  are  as 
clear  evidences  of  design,  as  any  other  features 
that  can  be  named. 

Observation  and  experiment  upon  the  pheno- 
mena of  society  soon  taught  men  that,  in  order  to 
obtain  the  advantages  of  social  existence,  certain 
rules  must  be  observed.  Morality  commenced 
with  society.  Society  is  possible  only  upon  the 
condition  that  the  members  of  it  shall  surrender 
more  or  less  of  their  individual  freedom  of  action. 
In  primitive  societies,  individual  selfishness  is  a 
centrifugal    force    of    such    intensity    that   it   is 


I  PROLOGUE  53 

constantly  bringing  the  social  organisation  to  the 
verge  of  destruction.  Hence  the  prominence  of 
the  positive  rules  of  obedience  to  the  elders ;  of 
standing  by  the  family  or  the  tribe  in  all  emergen- 
cies; of  fulfilling  the  religious  rites,  non-observ- 
ance of  which  is  conceived  to  damage  it  with  the 
supernatural  powers,  belief  in  whose  existence  is 
one  of  the  earliest  products  of  human  thought; 
and  of  the  negative  rules,  which  restrain  each 
from  meddling  with  the  life  or  property  of 
another. 

12.  The  highest  conceivable  form  of  human 
society  is  that  in  which  the  desire  to  do  what  is 
best  for  the  whole,  dominates  and  limits  the 
action  of  every  member  of  that  society.  The 
more  complex  the  social  organisation  the  greater 
the  number  of  acts  from  which  each  man  must 
abstain,  if  he  desires  to  do  that  which  is  best  for 
all.  Thus  the  progressive  evolution  of  society 
means  increasing  restriction  of  individual  freedom 
in  certain  directions. 

With  the  advance  of  civilisation,  and  the 
growth  of  cities  and  of  nations  by  the  coalescence 
of  families  and  of  tribes,  the  rules  which  con- 
stitute the  common  foundation  of  morality  and  of 
law  became  more  numerous  and  complicated,  and 
the  temptations  to  break  or  evade  many  of  them 
stronger.  In  the  absence  of  a  clear  apprehen- 
sion of  the  natural  sanctions  of  these  rules,  a 
supernatural  sanction  was  assumed  ;  and  imagina- 


54  PROLOGUE  I 

tion  supplied  the  motives  which  reason  was 
supposed  to  be  incompetent  to  furnish,  Religion, 
at  first  independent  of  morality,  gradually  took 
morality  under  its  protection ;  and  the  super- 
naturalists  have  ever  since  tried  to  persuade 
mankind  that  the  existence  of  ethics  is  bound  up 
with  that  of  supernaturalism. 

I  am  not  of  that  opinion,  But,  whether  it  is 
correct  or  otherwise,  it  is  very  clear  to  me  that, 
as  Beelzebub  is  not  to  be  cast  out  by  the  aid  of 
Beelzebub,  so  morality  is  not  to  be  established 
by  immorality.  It  is,  we  are  told,  the  special 
peculiarity  of  the  devil  that  he  was  a  liar  from 
the  beginning.  If  we  set  out  in  life  with  pre- 
tending to  know  that  which  we  do  not  know ;  with 
professing  to  accept  for  proof  evidence  which  we 
are  well  aware  is  inadequate ;  with  wilfully 
shutting  our  eyes  and  our  ears  to  facts  which 
militate  against  this  or  that  comfortable  hypo- 
thesis ;  we  are  assuredly  doing  our  best  to  deserve 
the  same  character. 

I  have  not  the  presumption  to  imagine  that,  in 
spite  of  all  my  efforts,  errors  may  not  have  crept 
into  these  propositions.  But  I  am  tolerably 
confident  that  time  will  prove  them  to  be 
substantially  correct.  And  if  they  are  so,  I 
confess  I  do  not  see  how  any  extant  supernatural- 
istic  system  can  also  claim  exactness.  That  they 
are   irreconcilable   with   the   biblical   cosmogony, 


I  PROLOGUE  55 

anthropology,  and  theodicy  is  obvious;  but  they 
are  no  less  inconsistent  with  the  sentimental 
Deism  of  the  "Vicaire  Savoyard"  and  his 
numerous  modern  progeny.  It  is  as  impossible, 
to  my  mind,  to  suppose  that  the  evolutionary 
process  was  set  going  with  full  foreknowledge  of 
the  result  and  yet  with  what  we  should  under- 
stand by  a  purely  benevolent  intention,  as  it  is 
to  imagine  that  the  intention  was  purely  malevo- 
lent. And  the  prevalence  of  dualistic  theories 
from  the  earliest  times  to  the  present  day — 
whether  in  the  shape  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
inherently  evil  nature  of  matter  ;  of  an  Ahriman  ; 
of  a  hard  and  cruel  Demiurge ;  of  a  diabolical 
"  prince  of  this  world,"  show  how  widely  this 
difficulty  has  been  felt. 

Many  seem  to  think  that,  when  it  is  admitted 
that  the  ancient  literature,  contained  in  our 
Bibles,  has  no  more  claim  to  infallibility  than  any 
other  ancient  literature ;  when  it  is  proved  that 
the  Israelites  and  their  Christian  successors 
accepted  a  great  many  supernaturalistic  theories 
and  legends  which  have  no  better  foundation  than 
those  of  heathenism,  nothing  remains  to  be  done  but 
to  throw  the  Bible  aside  as  so  much  waste  paper. 

I  have  always  opposed  this  opinion.  It  appears 
to  me  that  if  there  is  anybody  more  objectionable 
than  the  orthodox  Bibliolater  it  is  the  heterodox 
Philistine,  who  can  discover  in  a  literature  which, 
in   some   respects,  has  no  superior,  nothing  but 


56  PROLOGUE  I 

a  subject  for  scoffing  and  an  occasion  for  the 
display  of  his  conceited  ignorance  of  the  debt  he 
owes  to  former  generations. 

Twenty-two  years  ago  I  pleaded  for  the  use  of 
the  Bible  as  an  instrument  of  popular  education, 
and  I  venture  to  repeat  what  I  then  said  : 

"Consider  the   great   historical   fact    that,  for 
three  centuries,  this  book  has  been  woven  into 
the  life  of  all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  English 
history ;  that  it  has  become  the  national  Epic  of 
Britain  and  is  as  familiar  to  gentle  and  simple, 
from  John  o'  Groat's  House  to  Land's  End,   as 
Dante  and  Tasso  once  were  to  the  Italians ;  that 
it  is  written  in  the  noblest  and  purest  English 
and  abounds  in  exquisite  beauties  of  mere  literary 
form ;  and,  finally,  that  it  forbids  the  veriest  hind, 
who  never  left  his  village,  to  be  ignorant  of  the 
existence  of  other  countries  and  other  civilisations 
and   of    a   great   past,   stretching    back    to    the 
furthest  limits  of  the  oldest  nations  in  the  world. 
By  the  study  of  what  other  book  could  children 
be  so  much  humanised  and  made  to  feel  that  each 
figure  in  that  vast  historical  procession  fills,  like 
themselves,  but  a  momentary  space  in  the  interval 
between  the  Eternities ;  and  earns  the  blessings  or 
the  curses  of  all  time,  according  to  its  effort  to  do 
good  and  hate  evil,  even  as  they  also  are  earning 
their  payment  for  their  work  V1 

1  "The  School  Boards:  What  they  Can  do  and  what  they 
May  do,"  1870.     Critiques  and  Addresses,  p.  51. 


I  PROLOGUE  57 

At  the  same  time,  I  laid  stress  upon  the  neces- 
sity of  placing  such  instruction  in  lay  hands ;  in 
the  hope  and  belief,  that  it  would  thus  gradually 
accommodate  itself  to  the  coming  changes  of 
opinion ;  that  the  theology  and  the  legend  would 
drop  more  and  more  out  of  sight,  while  the  peren- 
nially interesting  historical,  literary,  and  ethical 
contents  would  come  more  and  more  into  view. 

I  may  add  yet  another  claim  of  the  Bible  to  the 
respect  and  the  attention  of  a  democratic  age. 
Throughout  the  history  of  the  western  world,  the 
Scriptures,  Jewish  and  Christian,  have  been  the 
great  instigators  of  revolt  against  the  worst  forms 
of  clerical  and  political  despotism.  The  Bible  has 
been  the  Magna  Charta  of  the  poor  and  of  the 
oppressed ;  down  to  modern  times,  no  State  has 
had  a  constitution  in  which  the  interests  of  the 
people  are  so  largely  taken  into  account,  in  which 
the  duties,  so  much  more  than  the  privileges,  of 
rulers  are  insisted  upon,  as  that  drawn  up  for 
Israel  in  Deuteronomy  and  in  Leviticus ;  nowhere 
is  the  fundamental  truth  that  the  welfare  of  the 
State,  in  the  long  run,  depends  on  the  uprightness 
of  the  citizen  so  strongly  laid  down.  Assuredly, 
the  Bible  talks  no  trash  about  the  rights  of  man  • 
but  it  insists  on  the  equality  of  duties,  on  the 
liberty  to  bring  about  that  righteousness  which  is 
somewhat  different  from  struggling  for  "  rights  " ; 
on  the  fraternity  of  taking  thought  for  one's 
neighbour  as  for  one's  self. 


58  PROLOGUE  I 

So  far  as  such  equality,  liberty,  and  fraternity 
are  included  under  the  democratic  principles 
which  assume  the  same  names,  the  Bible  is  the 
most  democratic  book  in  the  world.  As  such  it 
began,  through  the  heretical  sects,  to  undermine 
the  clerico-political  despotism  of  the  middle  ages, 
almost  as  soon  as  it  was  formed,  in  the  eleventh 
century ;  Pope  and  King  had  as  much  as  they 
could  do  to  put  down  the  Albigenses  and  the 
Waldenses  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies ;  the  Lollards  and  the  Hussites  gave  them 
still  more  trouble  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  ; 
from  the  sixteenth  century  onward,  the  Protestant 
sects  have  favoured  political  freedom  in  proportion 
to  the  degree  in  which  they  have  refused  to 
acknowledge  any  ultimate  authority  save  that  of 
the  Bible. 

But  the  enormous  influence  which  has  thus 
been  exerted  by  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Scrip- 
tures has  had  no  necessary  connection  with 
cosmogonies,  demonologies,  and  miraculous  inter- 
ferences. Their  strength  lies  in  their  appeals,  not 
to  the  reason,  but  to  the  ethical  sense.  I  do  not 
say  that  even  the  highest  biblical  ideal  is  exclusive 
of  others  or  needs  no  supplement.  But  I  do 
believe  that  the  human  race  is  not  yet,  possibly 
may  never  be,  in  a  position  to  dispense  with  it. 


II 

SCIENTIFIC  AND  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC 
KEALISM 

[1887] 

Next  to  undue  precipitation  in  anticipating  the 
results  of  pending  investigations,  the  intellectual 
sin  which  is  commonest  and  most  hurtful  to  those 
who  devote  themselves  to  the  increase  of  know- 
ledge is  the  omission  to  profit  by  the  experience 
of  their  predecessors  recorded  in  the  history  of 
science  and  philosophy.  It  is  true  that,  at  the 
present  day,  there  is  more  excuse  than  at  any 
former  time  for  such  neglect.  No  small  labour  is 
needed  to  raise  one's  self  to  the  level  of  the  acqui- 
sitions already  made  ;  and  able  men,  who  have 
achieved  thus  much,  know  that,  if  they  devote 
themselves  body  and  soul  to  the  increase  of  their 
store,  and  avoid  looking  back,  with  as  much  care 
as  if  the  injunction  laid  on  Lot  and  his  family 
were  binding  upon  them,  such  devotion  is  sure  to 
be  richly  repaid  by  the  joys  of  the  discoverer  and 


60  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

the  solace  of  fame,  if  not  by  rewards  of  a  less 
elevated  character. 

So,  following  the  advice  of  Francis  Bacon,  we 
refuse  inter  mortuos  queer  ere  vivitm ;  we  leave  the 
past  to  bury  its  dead,  and  ignore  our  intellectual 
ancestry.  Nor  are  we  content  with  that.  We 
follow  the  evil  example  set  us,  not  only  by  Bacon 
but  by  almost  all  the  men  of  the  Renaissance,  in 
pouring  scorn  upon  the  work  of  our  immediate 
spiritual  forefathers,  the  schoolmen  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  is  accepted  as  a  truth  which  is  indisput- 
able, that,  for  seven  or  eight  centuries,  a  long 
succession  of  able  men — some  of  them  of  trans- 
cendent acuteness  and  encyclopaedic  knowledge — 
devoted  laborious  lives  to  the  grave  discussion 
of  mere  frivolities  and  the  arduous  pursuit  of 
intellectual  will-o'-the-wisps.  To  say  nothing  of 
a  little  modesty,  a  little  impartial  pondering  over 
personal  experience  might  suggest  a  doubt  as  to 
the  adequacy  of  this  short  and  easy  method  of 
dealing  with  a  large  chapter  of  the  history  of 
the  human  mind.  Even  an  acquaintance  with 
popular  literature  which  had  extended  so  far  as 
to  include  that  part  of  the  contributions  of  Sam 
Slick  which  contains  his  weighty  aphorism  that 
"there  is  a  great  deal  of  human  nature  in  all 
mankind,"  might  raise  a  doubt  whether,  after  all, 
the  men  of  that  epoch,  who,  take  them  all  round, 
were  endowed  with  wisdom  and  folly  in  much 
the  same  proportion  as  ourselves,  were  likely  to 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  61 

display  nothing  better  than  the  qualities  of 
energetic  idiots,  when  they  devoted  their  faculties 
to  the  elucidation  of  problems  which  were  to 
them,  and  indeed  are  to  us,  the  most  serious 
which  life  has  to  offer.  Speaking  for  myself, 
the  longer  I  live  the  more  I  am  disposed  to 
thiuk  that  there  is  much  less  either  of  pure 
folly,  or  of  pure  wickedness,  in  the  world  than  is 
commonly  supposed.  It  may  be  doubted  if  any 
sane  man  ever  said  to  himself,  "  Evil,  be  thou  my 
good,"  and  I  have  never  yet  had  the  good  fortune 
to  meet  with  a  perfect  fool.  When  I  have  brought 
to  the  inquiry  the  patience  and  long-suffering 
which  become  a  scientific  investigator,  the  most 
promising  specimens  have  turned  out  to  have  a 
good  deal  to  say  for  themselves  from  their  own 
point  of  view.  And,  sometimes,  calm  reflection 
has  taught  the  humiliating  lesson,  that  their 
point  of  view  was  not  so  different  from  my  own 
as  I  had  fondly  imagined.  Comprehension  is 
more  than  half-way  to  sympathy,  here  as  else- 
where. 

If  we  turn  our  attention  to  scholastic  philosophy 
in  the  frame  of  mind  suggested  by  these  prefatory 
remarks,  it  assumes  a  very  different  character  from 
that  which  it  bears  in  general  estimation.  No 
doubt  it  is  surrounded  by  a  dense  thicket  of 
thorny  logomachies  and  obscured  by  the  dust- 
clouds  of  a  barbarous  and  perplexing  terminology. 
But  suppose  that,  undeterred  by  much  grime  and 


62  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

by  many  scratches,  the  explorer  has  toiled  through 
this  jungle,  he  comes  to  an  open  country  which  is 
amazingly  like  his  dear  native  land.  The  hills 
which  he  has  to  climb,  the  ravines  he  has  to 
avoid,  look  very  much  the  same  ;  there  is  the 
same  infinite  space  above,  and  the  same  abyss  of 
the  unknown  below ;  the  means  of  travelling  are 
the  same,  and  the  goal  is  the  same. 

That  goal  for  the  schoolmen,  as  for  us,  is  the 
settlement  of  the  question  how  far  the  universe  is 
the  manifestation  of  a  rational  order ;  in  other 
words,  how  far  logical  deduction  from  indisput- 
able premisses  will  account  for  that  which  has 
happened  and  does  happen.  That  was  the  object 
of  scholasticism,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  the 
object  of  modern  science  may  be  expressed  id 
the  same  terms.  In  pursuit  of  this  end,  modern 
science  takes  into  account  all  the  phenomena  of 
the  universe  which  are  brought  to  our  knowledge 
by  observation  or  by  experiment.  It  admits  that 
there  are  two  worlds  to  be  considered,  the  one 
physical  and  the  other  psychical ;  and  that  though 
there  is  a  most  intimate  relation  and  interconnec- 
tion between  the  two,  the  bridge  from  one  to  the 
other  has  yet  to  be  found  ;  that  their  phenomena 
run,  not  in  one  series,  but  along  two  parallel  lines. 

To  the  schoolmen  the  duality  of  the  universe 
appeared  under  a  different  aspect.  How  this 
came  about  will  not  be  intelligible  unless  we 
clearly  apprehend  the  fact  that  they  did  really 


II 


PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   EEALISM  G3 


believe  in  dogmatic  Christianity  as  it  was  formu- 
lated by  the  Roman  Church.  They  did  not  give 
a  mere  dull  assent  to  anything  the  Church  told 
them  on  Sundays,  and  ignore  her  teachings  foj 
the  rest  of  the  week ;  but  they  lived  and  moved 
and  had  their  being  in  that  supersensible  theo- 
logical world  which  was  created,  or  rather  grew 
up,  during  the  first  four  centuries  of  our  reckoning, 
and  which  occupied  their  thoughts  far  more  than 
the  sensible  world  in  which  their  earthly  lot  was 
cast. 

For  the  most  part,  we  learn  history  from  the 
colourless  compendiums  or  partisan  briefs  of  mere 
scholars,  who  have  too  little  acquaintance  with 
practical  life,  and  too  little  insight  into  specula- 
tive problems,  to  understand  that  about  which 
they  write.  In  historical  science,  as  in  all 
sciences  which  have  to  do  with  concrete  pheno- 
mena, laboratory  practice  is  indispensable  ;  and 
the  laboratory  practice  of  historical  science  is 
afforded,  on  the  one  hand,  by  active  social  and 
political  life,  and,  on  the  other,  by  the  study  of 
those  tendencies  and  operations  of  the  mind  which 
embody  themselves  in  philosophical  and  theologi- 
cal systems.  Thucydides  and  Tacitus,  and,  to  come 
nearer  our  own  time,  Hume  and  Grote,  were  men 
of  affairs,  and  had  acquired,  by  direct  contact  with 
social  and  political  history  in  the  making,  the 
secret  of  understanding  how  such  history  is  made. 
Our   notions   of  the    intellectual    history  of  the 

120 


64  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

middle  ages  are,  unfortunately,  too  often  derived 
from  writers  who  have  never  seriously  grappled 
with  philosophical  and  theological  problems  :  and 
hence  that  strange  myth  of  a  millennium  of  moon- 
shine to  which  I  have  adverted. 

However,  no  very  profound  study  of  the  works 
of  contemporary  writers  who,  without  devoting 
themselves  specially  to  theology  or  philosophy, 
were  learned  and  enlightened — such  men,  for 
example,  as  Eginhard  or  Dante — is  necessary  to 
convince  one's  self,  that,  for  them,  the  world  of  the 
theologian  was  an  ever-present  and  awful  reality. 
From  the  centre  of  that  world,  the  Divine  Trinity, 
surrounded  by  a  hierarchy  of  angels  and  saints, 
contemplated  and  governed  the  insignificant  sen- 
sible world  in  which  the  inferior  spirits  of  men, 
burdened  with  the  debasement  of  their  material 
embodiment  and  continually  solicited  to  their 
perdition  by  a  no  less  numerous  and  almost  as 
powerful  hierarchy  of  devils,  were  constantly 
struggling  on  the  edge  of  the  pit  of  everlasting 
damnation.1 

1  There  is  no  exaggeration  in  this  brief*  and  summary  view  of 
the  Catholic  cosmos.  But  it  would  be  unfair  to  leave  it  to  be 
supposed  that  the  Reformation  made  any  essential  alteration, 
except  perhaps  for  the  worse,  in  that  cosmology  which  called 
itself  "Christian."  The  protagonist  of  the  Reformation,  from 
whom  the  whole  of  the  Evangelical  sects  are  lineally  descended, 
states  the  case  with  that  plainness  of  speech,  not  to  say  bru- 
tality, which  characterised  him.  Luther  says  that  man  is  a 
beast  of  burden  who  only  moves  as  his  rider  orders ;  sometimes 
God  rides  him,  and  sometimes  Satan.  "Sic  voluntas  human  a 
in  medio  posita  est,  ceu  jumentum ;  si  insedeiit  Deus,  vult  et 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  65 

The  men  of  the  middle  ages  believed  that 
through  the  Scriptures,  the  traditions  of  the 
Fathers,  and  the  authority  of  the  Church,  they 
were  in  possession  of  far  more,  and  more  trust- 
worthy, information  with  respect  to  the  nature 
and  order  of  things  in  the  theological  world  than 
they  had  in  regard  to  the  nature  and  order  of 
things  in  the  sensible  world.  And,  if  the  two 
sources  of  information  came  into  conflict,  so  much 
the  worse  for  the  sensible  world,  which,  after  all, 
was  more  or  less  under  the  dominion  of  Satan. 
Let  us  suppose  that  a  telescope  powerful  enough 
to  show  us  what  is  going  on  in  the  nebula  of  the 
sword  of  Orion,  should  reveal  a  world  in  which 
stones  fell  upwards,  parallel  lines  met,  and  the 
fourth  dimension  of  space  was  quite  obvious.  Men 
of  science  would  have  only  two  alternatives  before 
them.  Either  the  terrestrial  and  the  nebular  facts 
must  be  brought  into  harmony  by  such  feats  of 
subtle  sophistry  as  the  human  mind  is   always 

vadit,  quo  vult  Deus.  ...  Si  insederit  Satan,  vult  et  vadit, 
quo  vult  Satan  ;  nee  est  in  ejus  arbitrio  ad  utrun.  sessorem 
currere,  aut  euni  quserere,  sed  ipsi  sessores  certant  ob  ipsum 
obtinendum  et  possidendum  "  (De  Servo  Arbitrio,  M.  Lutheri 
Opera,  ed.  1546,  t.  ii.  p.  468).  One  may  hear  substantially  the 
same  doctrine  preached  in  the  parks  and  at  street-corners  by 
zealous  volunteer  missionaries  of  Evangelicism,  any  Sunday,  in 
modern  London.  Why  these  doctrines,  which  are  conspicuous 
by  their  absence  in  the  four  Gospels,  should  arrogate  to  them- 
selves the  title  of  Evangelical,  in  contradistinction  to  Catholic, 
Christianity,  may  wt  11  perplex  the  impartial  inquirer,  who,  if 
he  were  obliged  to  choose  between  the  two,  might  naturally 
prefer  that  which  leaves  the  poor  beast  of  burden  a  little  freedom 
of  choice. 


66  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   EEALISM  ft 

capable  of  performing  when  driven  into  a  corner  ; 
or  science  must  throw  down  its  arms  in  despair, 
and  commit  suicide,  either  by  the  admission  that 
the  universe  is,  after  all,  irrational,  inasmuch  as 
that  which  is  truth  in  one  corner  of  it  is  absurdity 
in  another,  or  by  a  declaration  of  incompetency. 

In  the  middle  ages,  the  labours  of  those  great 
men  who  endeavoured  to  reconcile  the  system  of 
thought  which  started  from  the  data  of  pure 
reason,  with  that  which  started  from  the  data  of 
Roman  theology,  produced  the  system  of  thought 
which  is  known  as  scholastic  philosophy ;  the 
alternative  of  surrender  and  suicide  is  exemplified 
by  Avicenna  and  his  followers  when  they  declared 
that  that  which  is  true  in  theology  may  be  false 
in  philosophy,  and  vice  versd ;  and  by  Sanchez 
in  his  famous  defence  of  the  thesis  "  Quod  nil 
scitur." 

To  those  who  deny  the  validity  of  one  of  the 
primary  assumptions  of  the  disputants — who 
decline,  on  the  ground  of  the  utter  insufficiency  of 
the  evidence,  to  put  faith  in  the  reality  of  that 
other  world,  the  geography  and  the  inhabitants  of 
which  are  so  confidently  described  in  the  so-called l 
Christianity  of  Catholicism — the  long  and  bitter 
contest,  which  engaged  the  best  intellects  for  so 


1  I  say  " so-called"  not  by  way  of  offence,  but  as  a  protest 
against  the  monstrous  assumption  that  Catholic  Christianity  is 
explicitly  or  implicitly  contained  in  any  trustworthy  record  of 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  67 

many  centuries,  may  seem  a  terrible  illustration 
of  the  wasteful  way  in  which  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence is  carried  on  in  the  world  of  thought,  no 
less  than  in  that  of  matter.  But  there  is  a  more 
cheerful  mode  of  looking  at  the  history  of  scholas- 
ticism. It  ground  and  sharpened  the  dialectic 
implements  of  our  race  as  perhaps  nothing  but 
discussions,  in  the  result  of  which  men  thought 
their  eternal,  no  less  than  their  temporal,  interests 
were  at  stake,  could  have  done.  When  a  logical 
blunder  may  ensure  combustion,  not  only  in  the 
next  world  but  in  this,  the  construction  of  syllo- 
gisms acquires  a  peculiar  interest.  Moreover,  the 
schools  kept  the  thinking  faculty  alive  and  active, 
when  the  disturbed  state  of  civil  life,  the  mephitic 
atmosphere  engendered  by  the  dominant  ecclesi- 
asticism,  and  the  almost  total  neglect  of  natural 
knowledge,  might  well  have  stifled  it.  And, 
finally,  it  should  be  remembered  that  scholasticism 
really  did  thresh  out  pretty  effectually  certain 
problems  which  have  presented  themselves  to 
mankind  ever  since  they  began  to  think,  and 
which,  I  suppose,  will  present  themselves  so  long 
as  they  continue  to  think.  Consider,  for  example, 
the  controversy  of  the  Realists  and  the  Nominal- 
ists, which  was  carried  on  with  varying  fortunes, 
and  under  various  names,  from  the  time  of  Scotus 
Erigena  to  the  end  of  the  scholastic  period.  Has 
it  now  a  merely  antiquarian  interest  ?  Has 
Nominalism,  in  any  of  its  modifications,  so  com- 


68  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

pletely  won  the  day  that  Realism  may  be  regarded 
as  dead  and  buried  without  hope  of  resurrection  ? 
Many  people  seem  to  think  so,  but  it  appears  to 
me  that,  without  taking  Catholic  philosophy  into 
consideration,  one  has  not  to  look  about  far  to 
find  evidence  that  Realism  is  still  to  the  fore,  and 
indeed  extremely  lively.1 

The  other  day  I  happened  to  meet  with  a 
report  of  a  sermon  recently  preached  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral.  From  internal  evidence  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  the  report  is  substantially  correct. 
But  as  I  have  not  the  slightest  intention  of  finding- 
fault  with  the  eminent  theologian  and  eloquent 
preacher  to  whom  the  discourse  is  attributed,  for 
employment  of  scientific  language  in  a  manner  for 
which  he  could  find  only  too  many  scientific  pre- 
cedents, the  accuracy  of  the  report  in  detail  is 
not  to  the  purpose.  I  may  safely  take  it  as  the 
embodiment  of  views  which   are  thought  to  be 


1  It  may  be  desirable  to  observe  that,  in  modern  times,  the 
term  "  Rtalism"  has  acquired  a  signification  wholly  different 
from  that  which  attached  to  it  in  the  middle  ages.  We  com- 
monly use  it  as  the  contrary  of  Idealism.  The  Idealist  holds 
that  the  phenomenal  world  has  only  a  subjective  existence,  the 
Eealist  that  it  Las  an  objective  existence,  I  am  not  aware  that 
any  mediaeval  1  hilosopher  was  an  Idealist  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  apply  the  term  to  Berkeley.  In  fact,  the  cardinal  defect 
of  their  speculations  lies  in  their  oversight  of  the  considera- 
tions which  lead  to  Idealism.  If  many  of  them  regarded  the 
material  world  as  a  negation,  it  was  an  active  negation  ;  not 
zero,  but  a  minus  quantity. 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  69 

quite  in  accordance  with  science  by  many  excel- 
lent, instructed,  and  intelligent  people. 

The  preacher  further  contended  that  it  was  yet  more  difficult 
to  realise  that  our  earthly  home  would  become  the  scene  of  a 
vast  physical  catastrophe.     Imagination  recoils  from  the  idea 
that  the  course  of  nature — the  phrase  helps  to  disguise  the  truth 
— so  unvarying  and  regular,  the  ordered  sequence  of  movement 
and  life,  should  suddenly  cease.     Imagination  looks  more  reason- 
able when  it  assumes  the  air  of  scientific  reason.     Physical  law,, 
it  says,  will  prevent  the  occurrence  of  catastrophes  only  antici- 
pated by  an  apostl  s  in  an  unscientific  age.     Might  not  there, 
however,  be  a  suspension  of  a  lower  law  by  the  intervention  of 
a  higher  ?     Thus  every  time  we  lifted  our  arms  we  defied  the 
laws  of  gravitation,  and  in  railways   and  steamboats  powerful 
laws  were  held  in  check  by  others.     The  flood  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  were  brought  about  by  the  opera- 
tions of  existing  laws,  and  may  it  not  be  that  in  His  illimitable 
universe  there  are  more  important  laws  than  those   which  sur- 
round our  puny  life — moral   and  not  merely  physical  forces  ? 
Is  it  inconceivable  that  the  day  will  come  when  these  royal  and 
ultimate  laws  shall  wreck  the   natural   order  of  things   which 
seems  so  stable  and  so  fair?     Earthquakes  were  not  things  of 
remote  antiquity,  as  an  island  off  Italy,  the  Eastern  Archipelago, 
Greece,  and  Chicago  bore  witness.   ...   In  presence  of  a  great 
earthquake  men  feel  how  powerless  they  are,  and  their  very 
knowledge  adds  to  their  weakness.     The  end  of  human  proba- 
tion, the  final  dissolution  of  organised  society,  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  man's  home  on  the  surface  of  the  globe,  were  none  of 
them  violently  contrary  to  our  present  experience,  but  only  the 
extension  of  present  facts.    The  presentiment  of  death  was  com- 
mon ;  there  were  felt  to  be  many  things  which  threatened  the 
existence  of  society  ;  and  as  our  globe  was  a  ball  of  fire,  at  any 
moment  the  pent-up  forces  which  surge  and  boil  beneath  our 
feet  might  be  poured  out  ("Pall  Mall  Gazette,"  December  6, 
1886). 

The  preacher  appears  to  entertain  the  notion 


70  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

that  the  occurrence  of  a  "  catastrophe  "  1  involves 
a  breach  of  the  present  order  of  nature — that  it  is 
an  event  incompatible  with  the  physical  laws 
which  at  present  obtain.  He  seems  to  be  of 
opinion  that  "  scientific  reason  "  lends  its  authority 
to  the  imaginative  supposition  that  physical  law 
will  prevent  the  occurrence  of  the  "  catastrophes  " 
anticipated  by  an  unscientific  apostle. 

Scientific  reason,  like  Homer,  sometimes  nods; 
but  I  am  not  aware  that  it  has  ever  dreamed 
dreams  of  this  sort.  The  fundamental  axiom  of 
scientific  thought  is  that  there  is  not,  never  has 
"been,  and  never  will  be,  any  disorder  in  nature. 
The  admission  of  the  occurrence  of  any  event 
which  was  not  the  logical  consequence  of  the 
immediately  antecedent  events,  according  to  these 
definite,  ascertained,  or  unascertained  rules  which 
we  call  the  "  laws  of  nature,"  would  be  an  act  of 
self-destruction  on  the  part  of  science. 

"  Catastrophe "  is  a  relative  conception.  For 
ourselves  it  means  an  event  which  brings  about 
very  terrible  consequences  to  man,  or  impresses 
his  mind  by  its  magnitude  relatively  to  him.  But 
events  which  are  quite  in  the  natural  order  of 
things  to  us,  may  be  frightful  catastrophes  to  other 
sentient  beings.     Surely  no    interruption   of  the 


1  At  any  rate  a  catastrophe  greater  than  the  flood,  which,  as 
I  observe  with  interest,  is  as  calmly  assumed  by  the  preacher  to 
be  an  historical  event  as  if  science  had  never  had  a  word  to  say 
on  that  subject ! 


II  PSEUDO-SCTENTIFIO  EEALISM  71 

order  of  nature  is  involved  if,  in  the  course  of 
descending  through  an  Alpine  pine- wood,  I  jump 
upon  an  anthill  and  in  a  moment  wreck  a  whole 
city  and  destroy  a  hundred  thousand  of  its  inhabi- 
tants. To  the  ants  the  catastrophe  is  worse  than 
the  earthquake  of  Lisbon.  To  me  it  is  the  natural 
and  necessary  consequence  of  the  laws  of  matter 
in  motion.  A  redistribution  of  energy  has  taken 
place,  which  is  perfectly  in  accordance  with 
natural  order,  however  unpleasant  its  effects  may 
be  to  the  ants. 

Imagination,  inspired  by  scientific  reason, 
and  not  merely  assuming  the  airs  thereof,  as  it 
unfortunately  too  often  does  in  the  pulpit,  so  far 
from  having  any  right  to  repudiate  catastrophes 
and  deny  the  possibility  of  the  cessation  of  motion 
and  life,  easily  finds  justification  for  the  exactly 
contrary  course.  Kant  in  his  famous  "  Theory  of  the 
Heavens  "  declares  the  end  of  the  world  and  its 
reduction  to  a  formless  condition  to  be  a  necessary 
consequence  of  the  causes  to  which  it  owes  its 
origin  and  continuance.  And,  as  to  catastro- 
phes of  prodigious  magnitude  and  frequent  occur- 
rence, they  were  the  favourite  asylum  ignorantiw 
of  geologists,  not  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  If 
modern  geology  is  becoming  more  and  more 
disinclined  to  call  in  catastrophes  to  its  aid,  it  is 
not  because  of  any  a  'priori  difficulty  in  reconciling 
the  occurrence  of  such  events  with  the  universality 
of  order,  but  because  the  a  'posteriori  evidence  of 


72  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC  EEALISM  n 

the  occurrence  of  events  of  this  character  in  past 
times  has  more  or  less  completely  broken  down. 

It  is,  to  say  the  least,  highly  probable  that  this 
earth  is  a  mass  of  extremely  hot  matter,  invested 
by  a  cooled  crust,  through  which  the  hot  interior 
still  continues  to  cool,  though  with  extreme  slow- 
ness. It  is  no  less  probable  that  the  faults  and 
dislocations,  the  foldings  and  fractures,  everywhere 
visible  in  the  stratified  crust,  its  large  and  slow 
movements  through  miles  of  elevation  and  depres- 
sion, and  its  small  and  rapid  movements  which 
give  rise  to  the  innumerable  perceived  and 
unperceived  earthquakes  which  are  constantly 
occurrina-.  are  due  to  the  shrinkage  of  the  crust 
on  its  cooling  and  contracting  nucleus. 

Without  going  beyond  the  range  of  fair  scienti- 
fic analogy,  conditions  are  easily  conceivable  which 
should  render  the  loss  of  heat  far  more  rapid  than 
it  is  at  present ;  and  such  an  occurrence  would  be 
just  as  much  in  accordance  with  ascertained  laws 
of  nature,  as  the  more  rapid  cooling  of  a  red-hot 
bar,  when  it  is  thrust  into  cold  water,  than  when 
it  remains  in  the  air.  But  much  more  rapid 
cooling  might  entail  a  shifting  and  re-arrangemeDt 
of  the  parts  of  the  crust  of  the  earth  on  a  scale  of 
unprecedented  magnitude,  and  bring  about  "catas- 
trophes" to  which  the  earthquake  of  Lisbon  is 
but  a  trifle.  It  is  conceivable  that  man  and  his 
works  and  all  the  higher  forms  of  animal  life 
should    be    utterly    destroyed ;     that    mountain 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   EEALISM  73 

regions  should  be  converted  into  ocean  depths 
and  the  floor  of  oceans  raised  into  mountains; 
and  the  earth  become  a  scene  of  horror  which 
even  the  lurid  fancy  of  the  writer  of  the 
Apocalypse  would  fail  to  portray.  And  yet,  jto 
the  eye  of  science,  there  would  be  no  more  disorder 
here  than  in  the  sabbatical  peace  of  a  summer 
sea.  Not  a  link  in  the  chain  of  natural  causes  and 
effects  would  be  broken,  nowhere  would  there  be 
the  slightest  indication  of  the  "suspension  of  a 
lower  law  by  a  higher."  If  a  sober  scientific 
thinker  is  inclined  to  put  little  faith  in  the  wild 
vaticinations  of  universal  ruin  which,  in  a  less 
saintly  person  than  the  seer  of  Patmos,  might  seem 
to  be  dictated  by  the  fury  of  a  revengeful  fanatic, 
rather  than  by  the  spirit  of  the  teacher  who  bid 
men  love  their  enemies,  it  is  not  on  the  ground 
that  they  contradict  scientific  principles ;  but 
because  the  evidence  of  their  scientific  value  does 
not  fulfil  the  conditions  on  which  weight  is  at- 
tached to  evidence.  The  imagination  which 
supposes  that  it  does,  simply  does  not  "  assume 
the  air  of  scientific  reason." 

I  repeat  that,  if  imagination  is  used  within  the 
limits  laid  down  by  science,  disorder  is  unimagin- 
able. If  a  being  endowed  with  perfect  intellectual 
and  aesthetic  faculties,  but  devoid  of  the  capacity 
for  suffering  pain,  either  physical  or  mora],  were 
to  devote  his  utmost  powers  to  the  investigation 
of  nature,  the  universe  would  seem  to  him  to  be  a 


74  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

sort  of  kaleidoscope,  in  which,  at  every  successive 
moment  of  time,  a  new  arrangement  of  parts  of 
exquisite  beauty  and  symmetry  would  present 
itself;  and  each  of  them  would  show  itself  to  be 
the  logical  consequence  of  the  preceding  arrange- 
ment, under  the  conditions  which  we  call  the  laws 
of  nature.  Such  a  spectator  might  well  be  filled 
with  that  Amor  intelhctualis  Dei,  the  beatific 
vision  of  the  vita  contemplativa,  which  some  of  the 
greatest  thinkers  of  all  ages,  Aristotle,  Aquinas, 
Spinoza,  have  regarded  as  the  only  conceivable 
eternal  felicity ;  and  the  vision  of  illimitable 
suffering,  as  if  sensitive  beings  were  unregarded 
animalcules  which  had  got  between  the  bits  of 
glass  of  the  kaleidoscope,  which  mars  the  prospect 
to  us  poor  mortals,  in  no  wise  alters  the  fact  that 
order  is  lord  of  all,  and  disorder  only  a  name  for 
that  part  of  the  order  which  gives  us  pain. 

The  other  fallacious  employment  of  the  names 
of  scientific  conceptions  which  pervades  the  preach- 
er's utterance,  brings  me  back  to  the  proper  topic 
of  the  present  essay.  It  is  the  use  of  the  word 
"  law  "  as  if  it  denoted  a  thing — as  if  a  "  law  of 
nature,"  as  science  understands  it,  were  a  being 
endowed  with  certain  powers,  in  virtue  of  which 
the  phenomena  expressed  by  that  law  are  brought 
about.  The  preacher  asks,  "  Might  not  there  be 
a  suspension  of  a  lower  law  by  the  intervention  of 
a  higher  ? "  He  tells  us  that  every  time  we  lift 
our  arms  we  defy  the  law  of  gravitation.     He  asks 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  75 

whether  some  day  certain  "royal  and  ultimate 
laws "  may  not  come  and  "  wreck "  those  laws 
which  are  at  present,  it  would  appear,  acting  as 
nature's  police.  It  is  evident,  from  these  expres- 
sions, that  "  laws,"  in  the  mind  of  the  preacher, 
are  entities  having  an  objective  existence  in  a 
graduated  hierarchy.  And  it  would  appear  that 
the  "royal  laws  "  are  by  no  means  to  be  regarded 
as  constitutional  royalties  :  at  any  moment,  they 
may,  like  Eastern  despots,  descend  in  wrath 
among  the  middle- class  and  plebeian  laws,  which 
have  hitherto  done  the  drudgery  of  the  world's 
work,  and,  to  use  phraseology  not  unknown  in  our 
seats  of  learning — "  make  hay  "  of  their  belong- 
ings. Or  perhaps  a  still  more  familiar  analogy 
has  suggested  this  singular  theory;  and  it  is 
thought  that  high  laws  may  "  suspend  "  low  laws, 
as  a  bishop  may  suspend  a  curate. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  controvert  these  views,  if 
any  one  likes  to  hold  them.  All  I  wish  to  remark 
is  that  such  a  conception  of  the  nature  of  "  laws  " 
has  nothing  to  do  with  modern  science.  It  is 
scholastic  realism — realism  as  intense  and  unmiti- 
gated as  that  of  Scotus  Erigena  a  thousand  years 
ago.  The  essence  of  such  realism  is  that  it 
maintains  the  objective  existence  of  universals, 
or,  as  we  call  them  nowadays,  general  propositions. 
It  affirms,  for  example,  that  "  man "  is  a  real 
thing,  apart  from  individual  men,  having  its  exist- 
ence, not  in  the  sensible,  but  in  the  intelligible 


76  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

world,  and  clothing  itself  with  the  accidents  of 
sense  to  make  the  Jack  and  Tom  and  Harry 
whom  we  know.  Strange  as  such  a  notion  may 
appear  to  modern  scientific  thought,  it  really 
pervades  ordinary  language.  There  are  few 
people  who  would,  at  once,  hesitate  to  admit  that 
colour,  for  example,  exists  apart  from  the  mind 
which  conceives  the  idea  of  colour.  They  hold  it 
to  be  something  which  resides  in  the  coloured 
object ;  and  so  far  they  are  as  much  Realists  as  if 
they  had  sat  at  Plato's  feet.  Reflection  on  the 
facts  of  the  case  must,  I  imagine,  convince  every 
one  that  "  colour  "  is — not  a  mere  name,  which 
was  the  extreme  Nominalist  position — but  a  name 
for  that  group  of  states  of  feeling  which  we  call 
blue,  red,  yellow,  and  so  on,  and  which  we  believe 
to  be  caused  by  luminiferous  vibrations  which 
have  not  the  slightest  resemblance  to  colour ; 
while  these  again  are  set  afoot  by  states  of  the 
body  to  which  we  ascribe  colour,  but  which  are 
equally  devoid  of  likeness  to  colour. 

In  the  same  way,  a  law  of  nature,  in  the  scienti- 
fic sense,  is  the  product  of  a  mental  operation 
upon  the  facts  of  nature  which  come  under  our 
observation,  and  has  no  more  existence  outside 
the  mind  than  colour  has.  The  law  of  gravitation 
is  a  statement  of  the  manner  in  which  experience 
shows  that  bodies,  which  are  free  to  move,  do,  in 
fact,  move  towards  one  another.  But  the  other 
facts  of  observation,  that  bodies  are  not  always 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  77 

moving  in  this  fashion,  and  sometimes  move  in  a 
contrary  direction,  are  implied  in  the  words  "  free 
to  move."  If  it  is  a  law  of  nature  that  bodies 
tend  to  move  towards  one  another  in  a  certain 
way ;  it  is  another  and  no  less  true  law  of  nature 
that,  if  bodies  are  not  free  to  move  as  they  tend 
to  do,  either  in  consequence  of  an  obstacle,  or  of 
a  contrary  impulse  from  some  other  source  of 
energy  than  that  to  which  we  give  the  name  of 
gravitation,  they  either  stop  still,  or  go  another 
way. 

Scientifically  speaking,  it  is  the  acme  of  absurd- 
ity to  talk  of  a  man  defying  the  law  of  gravitation 
when  he  lifts  his  arm.  The  general  store  of 
energy  in  the  universe  working  through  terrestrial 
matter  is  doubtless  tending  to  bring  the  man's 
arm  down ;  but  the  particular  fraction  of  that 
energy  which  is  working  through  certain  of  his 
nervous  and  muscular  organs  is  tending  to  drive 
it  up,  and  more  energy  being  expended  on  the 
arm  in  the  upward  than  in  the  downward  direc- 
tion, the  arm  goes  up  accordingly.  But  the  law 
of  gravitation  is  no  more  defied,  in  this  case,  than 
when  a  grocer  throws  so  much  sugar  into  the 
empty  pan  of  his  scales  that  the  one  which 
contains  the  weight  kicks  the  beam. 

The  tenacity  of  the  wonderful  fallacy  that  the 
laws  of  nature  are  agents,  instead  of  being,  as  they 
really  are,  a  mere  record  of  experience,  upon 
which  we  base  our  interpretations  of  that  which 


78  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

does  happen,  and  our  anticipation  of  that  which 
will  happen,  is  an  interesting  psychological  fact  ; 
and  would  be  unintelligible  if  the  tendency  of 
the  human  mind  towards  realism  were  less  strong1. 
Even  at  the  present  day,  and  in  the  writings  of 
men  who  would  at  once  repudiate  scholastic  realism 
in  any  form,  "  law  "  is  often  inadvertently  em- 
ployed in  the  sense  of  cause,  just  as,  in  common 
life,  a  man  will  say  that  he  is  compelled  by  the 
law  to  do  so  and  so,  when,  in  point  of  fact,  all  he 
means  is  that  the  law  orders  him  to  do  it,  and 
tells  him  what  will  happen  if  he  does  not  do  it. 
We  commonly  hear  of  bodies  falling  to  the  ground 
by  reason  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  wdiereas  that  law 
is  simply  the  record  of  the  fact  that,  according  to 
all  experience,  they  have  so  fallen  (when  free  to 
move),  and  of  the  grounds  of  a  reasonable  expec- 
tation that  they  will  so  fall.  If  it  should  be  wTorth 
anybody's  while  to  seek  for  examples  of  such 
misuse  of  language  on  my  own  part,  I  am  not  at 
all  sure  he  might  not  succeed,  though  I  have 
usually  been  on  my  guard  against  such  looseness 
of  expression.  If  I  am  guilty,  I  do  penance  before- 
hand, and  only  hope  that  I  may  thereby  deter 
others  from  committing  the  like  fault.  And  I 
venture  on  this  personal  observation  by  way  of 
showing  that  I  have  no  wish  to  bear  hardly 
on  the  preacher  for  falling  into  an  error  for  which 
he  might  find  good  precedents.  Brit  it  is  one  of 
those  errors  which,  in  the  case  of  a  person  engaged 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  79 

in  scientific  pursuits,  do  little  harm,  because  it  is 
corrected  as  soon  as  its  consequences  become, 
obvious ;  while  those  who  know  physical  science 
only  by  name  are,  as  has  been  seen,  easily  led  to 
build  a  mighty  fabric  of  unrealities  on  this  funda- 
mental fallacy.  In  fact,  the  habitual  use  of  the  word 
"  law,"  in  the  sense  of  an  active  thing,  is  almost 
a  mark  of  pseudo-science  ;  it  characterises  the 
writings  of  those  who  have  appropriated  the 
forms  of  science  without  knowing  anything  of 
its  substance. 

There  are  two  classes  of  these  people  :  those 
who  are  ready  to  believe  in  any  miracle  so  long  as 
it  is  guaranteed  by  ecclesiastical  authority;  and 
those  who  are  ready  to  believe  in  any  miracle  so 
long  as  it  has  some  different  guarantee.  The 
believers  in  what  are  ordinarily  called  miracles — 
those  who  accept  the  miraculous  narratives  which 
they  are  taught  to  think  are  essential  elements  of 
religious  doctrine — are  in  the  one  category; 
the  spirit-rappers,  table-turners,  and  all  the  other 
devotees  of  the  occult  sciences  of  our  day  are  in 
the  other  :  and,  if  they  disagree  in  most  things 
they  agree  in  this,  namely,  that  they  ascribe  to 
science  a  dictum  that  is  not  scientific ;  and  that 
they  endeavour  to  upset  the  dictum  thus  foisted 
on  science  by  a  realistic  argument  which  is 
equally  unscientific. 

It  is  asserted,  for  example,  that,  on  a  particular 
occasion,  water  was  turned  into  wine  ;  and,  on  the 

121 


80  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC    REALISM  n 

other  hand,  it  is  asserted  that  a  man  or  a  woman 
"  levitated "  to  the  ceiling,  floated  about  there, 
and  finally  sailed  out  by  the  window.  And  it  is 
assumed  that  the  pardonable  scepticism,  with 
which  most  scientific  men  receive  these  state- 
ments, is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  feel  themselves 
justified  in  denying  the  possibility  of  any  such 
metamorphosis  of  water,  or  of  any  such  levi- 
tation,  because  such  events  are  contrary  to  the 
laws  of  nature.  So  the  question  of  the  preacher 
is  triumphantly  put :  How  do  you  know  that 
there  are  not  "  higher  "  laws  of  nature  than  your 
chemical  and  physical  laws,  and  that  these  higher 
laws  may  not  intervene  and  "  wreck  "  the  latter  ? 
The  plain  answer  to  this  question  is,  Why 
should  anybody  be  called  upon  to  say  how  he 
knows  that  which  he  does  not  know  ?  You  are 
assuming  that  laws  are  agents — efficient  causes 
of  that  which  happens — and  that  one  law  can 
interfere  with  another.  To  us,  that  assumption 
is  as  nonsensical  as  if  you  were  to  talk  of  a  propo- 
sition of  Euclid  being  the  cause  of  the  diagram 
which  illustrates  it,  or  of  the  integral  calculus 
interfering  with  the  rule  of  three.  Your  question 
really  implies  that  we  pretend  to  complete  know- 
ledge not  only  of  all  past  and  present  phenomena, 
but  of  all  that  are  possible  in  the  future,  and  we 
leave  all  that  sort  of  thing  to  the  adepts  of 
esoteric  Buddhism.  Our  pretensions  are  infinitely 
more  modest.     We  have  succeeded  in  finding  out 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC    REALISM  81 

the  rules  of  action  of  a  little  bit  of  the  universe  ; 
we  call  these  rules  "  laws  of  nature,"  not  because 
anybody  knows  whether  they  bind  nature  or  not, 
but  because  we  find  it  is  obligatory  on  us  to  take 
them  into  account,  both  as  actors  under  nature, 
and  as  interpreters  of  nature.  We  have  any 
quantity  of  genuine  miracles  of  our  own,  and  if 
you  will  furnish  us  with  as  good  evidence  of  your 
miracles  as  we  have  of  ours,  we  shall  be  quite 
happy  to  accept  them  and  to  amend  our  expression 
of  the  laws  of  nature  in  accordance  with  the  new 
facts. 

As  to  the  particular  cases  adduced,  we  are  so 
perfectly  fair-minded  as  to  be  willing  to  help  your 
case  as  far  as  we  can.  You  are  quite  mistaken  in 
supposing  that  anybody  who  is  acquainted  with  the 
possibilities  of  physical  science  will  undertake 
categorically  to  deny  that  water  may  be  turned 
into  wine.  Many  very  competent  judges  are 
already  inclined  to  think  that  the  bodies,  which  we 
have  hitherto  called  elementary,  are  really  com- 
posite arrangements  of  the  particles  of  a  uniform 
primitive  matter.  Supposing  that  view  to  be 
correct,  there  would  be  no  more  theoretical  diffi- 
culty about  turning  water  into  alcohol,  ethereal 
and  colouring  matters,  than  there  is,  at  this  pres- 
ent moment,  any  practical  difficulty  in  working 
other  such  miracles ;  as  when  we  turn  sugar  into 
alcohol,  carbonic  acid,  glycerine,  and  succinic  acid ; 
or  transmute  gas-refuse  into  perfumes  rarer  than 


82  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC    REALISM  h 

musk  and  dyes  richer  than  Tyrian  purple.  If  the 
so-called  "  elements/'  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  which 
compose  water,  are  aggregates  of  the  same  ultimate 
particles,  or  physical  units,  as  those  which  enter 
into  the  structure  of  the  so-called  element  "car- 
bon," it  is  obvious  that  alcohol  and  other  substances, 
composed  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxygen,  may 
be  produced  by  a  rearrangement  of  some  of  the 
units  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  into  the  "  element  " 
carbon,  and  their  synthesis  with  the  rest  of  the 
oxygen  and  hydrogen. 

Theoretically,  therefore,  we  can  have  no  sort  of 
objection  to  your  miracle.  And  our  reply  to  the 
levitators  is  just  the  same.  Why  should  not  your 
friend  "  levitate  "  ?  Fish  are  said  to  rise  and  sink 
in  the  water  by  altering  the  volume  of  an  internal 
air-receptacle ;  and  there  may  be  many  ways 
science,  as  yet,  knows  nothing  of,  by  which  we,  who 
live  at  the  bottom  of  an  ocean  of  air,  may  do  the 
same  thing.  Dialectic  gas  and  wind  appear  to  be 
by  no  means  wanting  among  you,  and  why  should 
not  long  practice  in  pneumatic  philosophy  have 
resulted  in  the  internal  generation  of  something  a 
thousand  times  rarer  than  hydrogen,  by  which,  in 
accordance  with  the  most  ordinary  natural  laws, 
you  would  not  only  rise  to  the  ceiling  and  float 
there  in  quasi-angelic  posture,  but  perhaps,  as  one 
of  your  feminine  adepts  is  said  to  have  done,  flit 
swifter  than  train  or  telegram  to  "  still-vexed 
Bermoothes/'  and  twit  Ariel,  if  he  happens  to  be 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  83 

there,  for  a  sluggard  ?  We  have  not  the  presump- 
tion to  deny  the  possibility  of  anything  you  affirm  ; 
only,  as  our  brethren  are  particular  about  evidence, 
do  give  us  as  much  to  go  upon  as  may  save  us  from 
being  roared  down  by  their  inextinguishable 
laughter. 

Enough  of  the  realism  which  clings  about  "  laws." 
There  are  plenty  of  other  exemplifications  of  its 
vitality  in  modern  science,  but  I  will  cite  only  one 
of  them. 

This  is  the  conception  of  "  vital  force  "  which 
comes  straight  from  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle. 
It  is  a  fundamental  proposition  of  that  philosophy 
that  a  natural  object  is  composed  of  two  constitu- 
ents— the  one  its  matter,  conceived  as  inert  or 
even,  to  a  certain  extent,  opposed  to  orderly  and 
purposive  motion ;  the  other  its  form,  conceived  as 
a  quasi-spiritual  something,  containing  or  con- 
ditioning the  actual  activities  of.  the  body  and  the 
potentiality  of  its  possible  activities. 

I  am  disposed  to  think  that  the  prominence  of 
this  conception  in  Aristotle's  theory  of  things 
arose  from  the  circumstance  that  he  was,  to  begin 
with  and  throughout  his  life,  devoted  to  biological 
studies.  In  fact  it  is  a  notion  which  must  force 
itself  upon  the  mind  of  any  one  who  studies 
biological  phenomena,  without  reference  to  general 
physics,  as  they  now  stand.  Everybody  who 
observes  the  obvious  phenomena  of  the  develop- 
ment of  a  seed  into  a  tree,  or  of  an  egg  into  an 


84  PSEUEO -SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

animal,  will  note  that  a  relatively  formless  mass  of 
matter  gradually  grows,  takes  a  definite  shape  and 
structure,  and,  finally,  begins  to  perform  actions 
which  contribute  towards  a  certain  end,  namely, 
the  maintenance  of  the  individual  in  the  first 
place,  and  of  the  species  in  the  second.  Starting 
from  the  axiom  that  every  event  has  a  cause,  we 
have  here  the  cavsa  finalis  manifested  in  the  last 
set  of  phenomena,  the  causa  materialis  and  formalis 
in  the  first,  while  the  existence  of  a  causa  ejjiciens 
within  the  seed  or  egg  and  its  product,  is  a  corollary 
from  the  phenomena  of  growth  and  metamorphosis, 
which  proceed  in  unbroken  succession  and  make 
up  the  life  of  the  animal  or  plant. 

Thus,  at  starting,  the  egg  or  seed  is  matt(  r 
having  a  "  form  "  like  all  other  material  bodies. 
But  this  form  has  the  peculiarity,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  lower  substantial  '"  forms,"  that  it  is  a  power 
which  constantly  works  towards  an  end  by  means 
of  living  organisation. 

So  far  as  I  know,  Leibnitz  is  the  only  philosopher 
(at  the  same  time  a  man  of  science,  in  the  modern 
sense,  of  the  first  rank)  who  has  noted  that  the 
modern  conception  of  Force,  as  a  sort  of  atmosphere 
enveloping  the  particles  of  bodies,  and  having 
potential  or  actual  activity,  is  simply  a  new  name 
for  the  Aristotelian  Form.1  In  modern  biology,  up 
till  within  quite  recent  times,  the  Aristotelian  con- 

1   "  Les  formes  des  anciens  ou  Enteleehies  ne  sont  autre  chose 
que  les  forces*'  (Leibnitz,  Lettre  au  Pere  Bouvet,  1697). 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC    REALISM  85 

ception  held  undisputed  sway ;  living  matter  was 
endowed  with  "  vital  force,"  and  that  accounted  for 
everything.  Whosoever  was  not  satisfied  with 
that  explanation  was  treated  to  that  very  "  plain 
argument  " — -"confound  you  eternally  " — where- 
with Lord  Peter  overcomes  the  doubts  of  his 
brothers  in  the  "  Tale  of  a  Tub  "  "  Materialist "  was 
the  mildest  term  applied  to  him — fortunate  if  he 
escaped  pelting  with  "  infidel "  and  "  atheist." 
There  may  be  scientific  Rip  Yan  Winkles  about, 
who  still  hold  by  vital  force  ;  but  among  those 
biologists  who  have  not  been  asleep  for  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century  "  vital  force "  no  longer 
figures  in  the  vocabulary  of  science.  It  is  a  patent 
survival  of  realism ;  the  generalisation  from  ex- 
perience that  all  living  bodies  exhibit  certain 
activities  of  a  definite  character  is  made  the  basis 
of  the  notion  that  every  living  body  contains  an 
entity,  "  vital  force/'  which  is  assumed  to  be  the 
cause  of  those  activities. 

It  is  remarkable,  in  looking  back,  to  notice  to 
what  an  extent  this  and  other  survivals  of 
scholastic  realism  arrested  or,  at  any  rate,  impeded 
the  application  of  sound  scientific  principles  to 
the  investigation  of  biological  phenomena.  When 
I  was  beginning  to  think  about  these  matters,  the 
scientific  world  was  occasionally  agitated  by 
discussions  respecting  the  nature  of  the  "  species  n 
and  "  genera "  of  Naturalists,  of  a  different  order 
from  the  disputes  of  a  later  time.     I  think  most 


86  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

were  agreed  that  a  "  species "  was  something 
which  existed  objectively,  somehow  or  other,  and 
had  been  created  by  a  Divine  fiat.  As  to  the 
objective  reality  of  genera,  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  difference  of  opinion.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  were  a  few  who  could  see  no  objective  reality 
in  anything  but  individuals,  and  looked  upon  both 
species  and  genera  as  hypostatised  universals.  As 
for  myself,  I  seem  to  have  unconsciously  emulated 
William  of  Occam,  inasmuch  as  almost  the  first 
public  discourse  I  ever  ventured  upon,  dealt  with 
"  Animal  Individuality,"  and  its  tendency  was  to 
fight  the  Nominalist  battle  even  in  that  quarter. 

Realism  appeared  in  still  stranger  forms  at  the 
time  to  which  I  refer.  The  community  of  plan 
which  is  observable  in  each  great  group  of  animals 
was  hypostatised  into  a  Platonic  idea  with  the 
appropriate ,  name  of  "  archetype,"  and  we  were 
told,  as  a  disciple  of  Philo-Judaeus  might  have 
told  us,  that  this  realistic  figment  was  "  the 
archetypal  light"  by  which  Nature  has  been 
guided  amidst  the  "wreck  of  worlds."  So,  again, 
another  naturalist,  who  had  no  less  earned  a  well- 
deserved  reputation  by  his  contributions  to  positive 
knowledge,  put  forward  a  theory  of  the  production 
of  living  things  which,  as  nearly  as  the  increase 
of  knowledge  allowed,  was  a  reproduction  of  the 
doctrine  inculcated  by  the  Jewish  Cabbala. 

Annexing  the  archetype  notion,  and  carrying  it 
to  its  full  logical  consequence,  the  author  of  this 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC    REALISM  87 

theory  conceived  that  the  species  of  animals  and 
plants  were  so  many  incarnations  of  the  thoughts 
of  God — material  representations  of  Divine 
ideas — during  the  particular  period  of  the  world's 
history  at  which  they  existed.  But,  under  the 
influence  of  the  embryological  and  palfeontological 
discoveries  of  modern  times,  which  had  already 
lent  some  scientific  support  to  the  revived  ancient 
theories  of  cosmical  evolution  or  emanation,  the 
ingenious  author  of  this  speculation,  while  denying 
and  repudiating  the  ordinary  theory  of  evolution 
by  successive  modification  of  individuals,  main- 
tained and  endeavoured  to  prove  the  occurrence 
of  a  progressive  modification  in  the  divine  ideas 
of  successive  epochs. 

On  the  foundation  of  a  supposed  elevation  of 
organisation  in  the  whole  living  population  of  any 
epoch,  as  compared  with  that  of  its  predecessor, 
and  a  supposed  complete  difference  in  species 
between  the  populations  of  any  two  epochs 
(neither  of  which  suppositions  has  stood  the  test 
of  further  inquiry),  the  author  of  this  speculation 
based  his  conclusion  that  the  Creator  had,  so  to 
speak,  improved  upon  his  thoughts  as  time  went 
on  ;  and  that,  as  each  such  amended  scheme  of 
creation  carae  up,  the  embodiment  of  the  earlier 
divine  thoughts  was  swept  away  by  a  universal 
catastrophe,  and  an  incarnation  of  the  improved 
ideas  took  its  place.  Only  after  the  last  such 
"  wreck  "  thus  brought  about,  did  the  embodiment 


88  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  n 

of  a  divine  thought,  in  the  shape  of  the  first  man, 
make  its  appearance  as  the  ne  'plus  ultra  of  the 
cosmogonical  process, 

I  imagine  that  Louis  Agassiz,  the  genial  back- 
woodsman of  the  science  of  my  young  days,  who 
did  more  to  open  out  new  tracks  in  the  scientific 
forest  than  most  men,  would  have    been    much 
surprised  to   learn    that    he    was   preaching   the 
doctrine  of  the  Cabbala,  pure  and  simple.     Ac- 
cording to  this  modification  of  Neoplatonism  by 
contact    with    Hebrew    speculation,    the    divine 
essence  is  unknowable — without  form  or  attribute ; 
but  the  interval  between   it   and   the   world   of 
sense   is  filled  by  intelligible  entities,  which  are 
nothing  but  the  familiar  hypostatised  abstractions 
of    the    realists.      These    have    emanated,    like 
immense  waves  of  light,  from  the  divine  centre, 
and,  as  ten  consecutive  zones  of  Sephiroth,  form 
the  universe.     The  farther  away  from  the  centre, 
the  more  the  primitive  light   wanes,    until   the 
periphery  ends  in  those  mere  negations,  darkness 
and  evil,  which  are  the  essence  of  matter.     On 
this,  the  divine   agency  transmitted  through  the 
Sephiroth  operates  after  the  fashion  of  the  Aris- 
totelian forms,  and,  at  first,  produces  the  lowest  of 
a  series  of  worlds.     After  a  certain  duration  the 
primitive  world  is  demolished  and  its  fragments 
used  up  in  making  a  better ;  and  this  process  is 
repeated,  until  at  length  a  final  world,  with  man 
for  its  crown  and  finish,  makes    its   appearance. 


II  PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC   REALISM  89 

It  is  needless  to  trace  the  process  of  retrogressive 
metamorphosis  by  which,  through  the  agency  of 
the  Messiah,  the  steps  of  the  process  of  evolution 
here  sketched  are  retraced.  Sufficient  has  been 
said  to  prove  that  the  extremist  realism  current 
in  the  philosophy  of  the  thirteenth  century  can 
be  fully  matched  by  the  speculations  of  our  own 
time. 


Ill 

SCIENCE  AND  PSEUDO-SCIENCE 

[1887] 

In  the  opening  sentences  of  a  contribution  to  the 
last  number  of  this  Review, 1  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
has  favoured  rne  with  a  lecture  on  the  proprieties 
of  controversy,  to  which  I  should  be  disposed  to 
listen  with  more  docility  if  his  Grace's  precepts 
appeared  to  me  to  be  based  upon  rational  principles, 
or  if  his  example  were  more  exemplary. 

With  respect  to  the  latter  point,  the  Duke  has 
thought  fit  to  entitle  his  article  "  Professor  Huxley 
on  Canon  Liddon,"  and  thus  forces  into  prominence 
an  element  of  personality,  which  those  who  read 
the  paper  which  is  the  object  of  the  Duke's 
animadversions  will  observe  I  have  endeavoured, 
most  carefully,  to  avoid.  My  criticisms  dealt  with 
a  report  of  a  sermon,  published  in  a  newspaper, 
and  thereby  addressed  to  all  the  world.  Whether 
that  sermon  was  preached  by  A  or  B  was  not  a 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  March  1887. 


Ill  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  91 

matter  of  the  smallest  consequence;  and  I  went 
out  of  my  way  to  absolve  the  learned  divine  to 
whom  the  discourse  was  attributed,  from  the 
responsibility  for  statements  which,  for  anything  I 
knew  to  the  contrary,  might  contain  imperfect,  or 
inaccurate,  representations  of  his  views.  The 
assertion  that  I  had  the  wish,  or  was  beset,  by  any 
"  temptation  to  attack '  Canon  Liddon  is  simply 
contrary  to  fact. 

But  suppose  that  if,  instead  of  sedulously 
avoiding  even  the  appearance  of  such  attack,  I 
had  thought  fit  to  take  a  different  course  ;  suppose 
that,  after  satisfying  myself  that  the  eminent 
clergyman  whose  name  is  paraded  by  the  Duke  of 
Argyll  had  really  uttered  the  words  attributed  to 
him  from  the  pulpit  of  St.  Paul's,  what  right 
would  any  one  have  to  find  fault  with  my  action 
on  grounds  either  of  justice,  expediency,  or  good 
taste  ? 

Establishment  has  its  duties  as  well  as  its 
rights.  The  clergy  of  a  State  Church  enjoy  many 
advantages  over  those  of  unprivileged  and  unen- 
dowed religious  persuasions ;  but  they  lie  under  a 
correlative  responsibility  to  the  State,  and  to 
every  member  of  the  body  politic.  I  am  not 
aware  that  any  sacredness  attaches  to  sermons. 
If  preachers  stray  beyond  the  doctrinal  limits  set 
by  lay  lawyers,  the  Privy  Council  will  see  to  it ; 
and,  if  they  think  fit  to  use  their  pulpits  for  the 
promulgation  of  literary,  or  historical,  or   scientific 


92  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

errors,  it  is  not  only  the  right,  but  the  duty,  of  the 
humblest  layman,  who  may  happen  to  be  better 
informed,  to  correct  the  evil  effects  of  such  perver- 
sion of  the  opportunities  which  the  State  affords 
them ;  and  such  misuse  of  the  authority  which  its 
support  lends  them.  Whatever  else  it  may 
claim  to  be,  in  its  relations  with  the  State,  the 
Established  Church  is  a  branch  of  the  Civil 
Service;  and,  for  those  who  repudiate  the  eccle- 
siastical authority  of  the  clergy,  they  are  merely 
civil  servants,  as  much  responsible  to  the  English 
people  for  the  proper  performance  of  their  duties 
as  any  others. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  tells  us  that  the  "  work 
and  calling"  of  the  clergy  prevent  them  from 
"pursuing  disputation  as  others  can."  I  wonder  if 
his  Grace  ever  reads  the  so-called  "  religious  "  news- 
papers. It  is  not  an  occupation  which  I  should 
commend  to  any  one  who  wishes  to  employ  his 
time  profitably ;  but  a  very  short  devotion  to  this 
exercise  will  suffice  to  convince  him  that  the 
"  pursuit  of  disputation,"  carried  to  a  degree  of 
acrimony  and  vehemence  unsurpassed  in  lay  con- 
troversies, seems  to  be  found  quite  compatible  with 
the  "  work  and  calling "  of  a  remarkably  large 
number  of  the  clergy. 

Finally,  it  appears  to  me  that  nothing  can  be 
in  worse  taste  than  the  assumption  that  a  body  of 
English  gentlemen  can,  by  any  possibility,  desire 
that  immunity  from  criticism  which  the  Duke  of 


Ill  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  93 

Argyll  claims  for  them.  Nothing  would  be  more 
personally  offensive  to  me  than  the  supposition 
that  I  shirked  criticism,  just  or  unjust,  of  any 
lecture  I  ever  gave.  I  should  be  utterly  ashamed 
of  myself  if,  when  I  stood  up  as  an  instructor  of 
others,  I  had  not  taken  every  pains  to  assure 
myse  If  of  the  truth  of  that  which  I  was  about  to 
say;  and  I  should  feel  myself  bound  to  be  even 
more  careful  with  a  popular  assembly,  who  would 
take  me  more  or  less  on  trust,  than  with  an 
audience  of  competent  and  critical  experts. 

I  decline  to  assume  that  the  standard  of 
morality,  in  these  matters,  is  lower  among  the 
clergy  than  it  is  among  scientific  men.  I  refuse  to 
think  that  the  priest  who  stands  up  before  a  con- 
gregation, as  the  minister  and  interpreter  of  the 
Divinity,  is  less  careful  in  his  utterances,  less 
ready  to  meet  adverse  comment,  than  the  layman 
who  comes  before  his  audience,  as  the  minister 
and  interpreter  of  nature.  Yet  what  should  we 
think  of  the  man  of  science  who,  when  his 
ignorance  or  his  carelessness  was  exposed,  whined 
about  the  want  of  delicacy  of  his  critics,  or  pleaded 
his  "  work  and  calling  "  as  a  reason  for  being-  let 
alone  ? 

No  man,  nor  any  body  of  men,  is  good  enough, 
or  wise  enough,  to  dispense  with  the  tonic  of 
criticism.  Nothing  has  done  more  harm  to  the 
cLergy  than  the  practice,  too  common  among 
laymen,  of  regarding  them,  when  in  the  pulpit,  as 


94  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  HI 

a  sort  of  chartered  libertines,  whose  divagations 
are  not  to  be  taken  seriously.  And  I  am  well 
assured  that  the  distinguished  divine,  to  whom  the 
sermon  is  attributed,  is  the  last  person  who  would 
desire  to  avail  himself  of  the  dishonouring  pro- 
tection which  has  been  superfluously  thrown  over 
him. 

So  much  for  the  lecture  on  propriety.  But  the 
Duke  of  Argyll,  to  whom  the  hortatory  style 
seems  to  come  naturally,  does  me  the  honour  to 
make  my  sayings  the  subjects  of  a  series  of  other 
admonitions,  some  on  philosophical,  some  on 
geological,  some  on  biological  topics.  I  can  but 
rejoice  that  the  Duke's  authority  in  these  matters 
is  not  always  employed  to  show  that  I  am  ignorant 
of  them  ;  on  the  contrary,  I  meet  with  an  amount 
of  agreement,  even  of  approbation,  for  which  I 
proffer  such  gratitude  as  may  be  due,  even  if 
that  gratitude  is  sometimes  almost  overshadowed 
by  surprise. 

I  am  unfeignedly  astonished  to  find  that  the 
Duke  of  Argyll,  who  professes  to  intervene  on 
behalf  of  the  preacher,  does  really,  like  another 
Balaam,  bless  me  altogether  in  respect  of  the 
main  issue. 

I  denied  the  justice  of  the  preacher's  ascription 
to  men  of  science  of  the  doctrine  that  miracles 
are  incredible,  because  they  are  violations  of 
natural  law;  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll  says  that  he 
believes   my   "denial   to   be   well-founded.     The 


in  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  95 

preacher  was  answering  an  objection  which  has 
now  been  generally  abandoned."  Either  the 
preacher  knew  this  or  he  did  not  know  it.  It 
seems  to  me,  as  a  mere  lay  teacher,  to  be  a  pity 
that  the  "  great  dome  of  St.  Paul's  "  should  have 
been  made  to  "  echo  "  (if  so  be  that  such  stentorian 
effects  were  really  produced)  a  statement  which, 
admitting  the  first  alternative,  was  unfair,  and, 
admitting  the  second,  was  ignorant.1 

Having  thus  sacrificed  one  half  of  the  preacher's 
arguments,  the  Duke  of  Argyll  proceeds  to  make 
equally  short  work  with  the  other  half.  It  ap- 
pears that  he  fully  accepts  my  position  that  the 
occurrence  of  those  events,  which  the  preacher 
speaks  of  as  catastrophes,  is  no  evidence  of  dis- 
order, inasmuch  as  such  catastrophes  may  be 
necessary  occasional  consequences  of  uniform 
changes.  Whence  I  conclude,  his  Grace  agrees 
with  me,  that  the  talk  about  royal  laws  "wrecking  " 

1  The  Duke  of  Argyll  speaks  of  the  recent  date  of  the  demon- 
stration of  the  fallacy  of  the  doctrine  in  question.  "Eecent" 
is  a  relative  term,  but  I  may  mention  that  the  question  is  fully 
discussed  in  my  book  on  Hume  :  which,  if  1  may  believe  my 
publishers,  has  been  read  by  a  good  many  people  since  it  ap- 
peared in  1879.  .Moreover,  I  observe,  from  a  note  at  page  89  of 
The  H'ign  of  Lav:,  a  work  to  which  I  sball  have  occasion  to 
advert  by  and  by,  that  the  Duke  of  Argyll  draws  attention  to 
the  circumstance  that,  so  L  ng  ago  as  1866,  the  views  which  I 
hold  on  this  subject  were  well  known.  The  Duke,  in  fact, 
writing  about  this  time,  says,  after  quoting  a  phrase  of  mine  : 
''The  question  of  miracles  seems  now  to  be  admitted  on  all 
hands  to  be  simply  a  questi  n  of  evidence."  In  science,  we 
think  that  a  teacher  who  ignores  views  which  have  been 
discussed  coram  popitlo  for  twenty  years,  is  hardly  up  to  the 
mark. 

122 


96  SCIENCE  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

ordinary  laws  may  be  eloquent  metaphor,  but  is 
also  nonsense. 

And  now  comes  a  further  surprise.  After 
having  given  these  superfluous  stabs  to  the  slain 
body  of  the  preacher's  argument,  my  good  ally 
remarks,  with  magnificent  calmness  :  "  So  far, 
then,  the  preacher  and  the  professor  are  at  one." 
"  Let  them  smoke  the  calumet."  By  all  means  : 
smoke  would  be  the  most  appropriate  symbol  of 
this  wonderful  attempt  to  cover  a  retreat.  After 
all,  the  Duke  has  come  to  bury  the  preacher, 
not  to  praise  him  ;  only  he  makes  the  funeral 
obsequies  look  as  much  like  a  triumphal  pro- 
cession as  possible. 

So  far  as  the  questions  between  the  preacher 
and  myself  are  concerned,  then,  I  may  feel  happy. 
The  authority  of  the  Duke  of  Argyll  is  ranged  on 
my  side.  But  the  Duke  has  raised  a  number  of 
other  questions,  with  respect  to  which  I  fear  I 
shall  have  to  dispense  with  his  support — nay, 
even  be  compelled  to  differ  from  him  as  much,  or 
more,  than  I  have  done  about  his  Grace's  new 
rendering  of  the  "  benefit  of  clergy." 

In  discussing  catastrophes,  the  Duke  indulges 
in  statements,  partly  scientific,  partly  anecdotic, 
which  appear  to  me  to  be  somewhat  misleading. 
We  are  told,  to  begin  with,  that  Sir  Charles 
Lyell's  doctrine  respecting  the  proper  mode  of 
interpreting  the  facts  of  geology  (which  is  com- 
monly called  uniformitarianism)  "does  not  hold 


HI  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  97 

its  head  quite  so  high  as  it  once  did."  That  is 
great  news  indeed.  But  is  it  true  ?  All  I  can 
say  is  that  I  am  aware  of  nothing  that  has 
happened  of  late  that  can  in  any  way  justify 
it ;  and  my  opinion  is,  that  the  body  of  Lyell's 
doctrine,  as  laid  down  in  that  great  work,  "The 
Principles  of  Geology,"  whatever  may  have  hap- 
pened to  its  head,  is  a  chief  and  permanent  con- 
stituent of  the  foundations  of  geological  science. 

But  this  question  cannot  be  advantageously  dis- 
cussed, unless  we  take  some  pains  to  discriminate 
between  the  essential  part  of  the  uniforrnitarian 
doctrine  and  its  accessories  ;  and  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  Duke  of  Argyll  has  carried  his 
studies  of  geological  philosophy  so  far  as  this 
point.  For  he  defines  uniformitarianism  to  be 
the  assumption  of  the  "  extreme  slowness  and 
perfect  continuity  of  all  geological  changes." 

What  "  perfect  continuity "  may  mean  in  this 
definition,  I  am  by  no  means  sure ;  but  I  can  only 
imagine  that  it  signifies  the  absence  of  any  break 
in  the  course  of  natural  order  during  the  millions 
of  years,  the  lapse  of  which  is  recorded  by 
geological  phenomena. 

Is  the  Duke  of  Argyll  prepared  to  say  that  any 
geologist  of  authority,  at  the  present  day,  believes 
that  there  is  the  slightest  evidence  of  the  occur- 
rence of  supernatural  intervention,  during  the 
long  ages  of  which  the  monuments  are  preserved 
to  us  in  the  crust  of  the  earth  ?     And  if  he  is  not, 


98  SCIENCE  AND  PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

in  what  sense  has  this  part  of  the  uniformitarian 
doctrine,  as  he  defines  it,  lowered  its  pretensions 
to  represent  scientific  truth  ? 

As  to  the  "extreme  slowness  of  all  geological 
changes,"  it  is  simply  a  popular  error  to  regard 
that  as,  in  any  wise,  a  fundamental  and  necessary 
dogma  of  uniformitarianism.  It  is  extremely 
astonishing  to  me  that  any  one  who  has  carefully 
studied  Lyell's  great  work  can  have  so  completely 
failed  to  appreciate  its  purport,  which  yet  is  "  writ 
large  "  on  the  very  title-page  :  "  The  Principles  of 
Geology,  being  an  attempt  to  explain  the  former 
changes  of  the  earth's  surface  by  reference  to 
causes  now  in  operation."  The  essence  of  Lyell's 
doctrine  is  here  written  so  that  those  who  run 
may  read  ;  and  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
quickness  or  slowness  of  the  past  changes  of  the 
earth's  surface  ;  except  in  so  far  as  existing 
analogous  changes  may  go  on  slowly,  and  there- 
fore create  a  presumption  in  favour  of  the  slowness 
of  past  changes. 

With  that  epigrammatic  force  which  character- 
ises his  style,  Buffon  wrote,  nearly  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago,  in  his  famous  "  Theorie  de  la 
Terre  "  :  "  Pour  juger  de  ce  qui  est  arrive,  et  meme 
de  ce  qui  arrivera,  nous  n'avons  qu'a  examiner  ce 
qui  arrive."  The  key  of  the  past,  as  of  the  future, 
is  to  be  sought  in  the  present;  and,  only  when 
known  causes  of  change  have  been  shown  to  be 
insufficient,  have  we  any  right  to  have  recourse  to 


Ill  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  99 

unknown  causes.  Geology  is  as  much  a  historical 
science  as  archaeology ;  and  I  apprehend  that  all 
sound  historical  investigation  rests  upon  this 
axiom.  It  underlay  all  Hutton's  work  and  ani- 
mated Lyell  and  Scope  in  their  successful  efforts 
to  revolutionise  the  geology  of  half  a  century  ago. 
There  is  no  antagonism  whatever,  and  there 
never  was,  between  the  belief  in  the  views  which 
had  their  chief  and  unwearied  advocate  in  Lyell 
and  the  belief  in  the  occurrence  of  catastrophes. 
The  first  edition  of  Lyell's  "  Principle^,"  published 
in  1830,  lies  before  me  ;  and  a  large  part  of  the 
first  volume  is  occupied  by  an  account  of  volcanic, 
seismic,  and  diluvial  catastrophes  which  have 
occurred  within  the  historical  period.  Moreover, 
the  author,  over  and  over  again,  expressly  draws 
the  attention  of  his  readers  to  the  consistency  of 
catastrophes  with  his  doctrine. 

Notwithstanding,  therefore,  that  we  have  not  witnessed  with  - 
in  the  last  three  thousand  years  the  devastation  by  deluge  of  a 
large  continent,  yet,  as  we  may  predict  the  future  occurrence  of 
such  catastrophes,  we  are  authorised  to  regard  them  as  part  of 
the  present  order  of  nature,  and  they  may  be  introduced  into 
geological  speculations  respecting  the  past,  provided  that  we  do 
not  imagine  them  to  have  been  more  frequent  or  general  than 
we  expect  them  to  be  in  time  to  come  (vol.  i.  p.  89). 

Again : — 

If  we  regard  each  of  the  causes  separately,  which  we  know  to 
be  at  present  the  most  instrumental  in  remodelling  the  state  of 
the  surface,  we  shall  find  that  we  must  expect  each  to  be  in 
action  for  thousands  of  years,  without  producing  any  extensive 


100  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  in 

alterations  in  the  habitable  surface,  and  then  to  give  rise,  during 
a  very  brief  period,  to  important  revolutions  (vol.  ii.  p.  161). 1 

Lyell  quarrelled  with  the  catastrophists  then, 
by  no  means  because  they  assumed  that  catas- 
trophes occur  and  have  occurred,  but  because 
they  had  got  into  the  habit  of  calling  on  their 
god  Catastrophe  to  help  them,  when  they  ought 
to  have  been  putting  their  shoulders  to  the  wheel 
of  observation  of  the  present  course  of  nature,  in 
order  to  help  themselves  out  of  their  difficulties. 
And  geological  science  has  become  what  it  is, 
chiefly  because  geologists  have  gradually  accepted 
Lyell's  doctrine  and  followed  his  precepts. 

So  far  as  I  know  anything  about  the  matter, 
there  is  nothing  that  can  be  called  proof,  that  the 
causes  of  geological  phenomena  operated  more  in- 
tensely or  more  rapidly,  at  any  time  between  the 
older  tertiary  and  the  oldest  palaeozoic  epochs 
than  they  have  done  between  the  older  tertiary 
epoch  and  the  present  day.  And  if  that  is  so, 
uniformitarianism,  even  as  limited  by  Lyell,2  has  no 

1  See  also  vol.  i.  p.  460.  In  the  ninth  edition  (1853),  pub- 
lished twenty-three  years  after  the  first,  Lyell  deprives  even  the 
most  careless  reader  of  any  excuse  for  misunderstanding  him  : 
"  So  in  regard  to  subterranean  movements,  the  theory  of  the 
perpetual  uniformity  of  the  force  which  they  exert  on  the  earth- 
crust  is  quite  consistent  with  the  admission  of  their  alternate 
development  and  suspension  for  indefinite  periods  within  limited 
geographical  areas"  (p.  187'. 

2  A  great  many  years  ago  (Presidential  Address  to  the  Geo- 
logical Society,  1869)  I  ventured  to  indicate  that  which  seemed 
to  me  to  be  the  weak  point,  not  in  the  fundamental  principles 
of  uniformitarianism,  but  in  uniformitarianism  as  taught  by 
Lyell.     It  lay,  to  my  mind,  in  the  refusal  by  Hutton,  and  in  a 


Ill  SCIENCE   AND    PSEUDO-SCIENCE  101 

call  to  lower  its  crest.  But  if  the  facts  were  other- 
wise,thepositionLyell  took  up  remains  impregnable. 
He  did  not  say  that  the  geological  operations  of 
nature  were  never  more  rapid,  or  more  vast,  than 
they  are  now  ;  what  he  did  maintain  is  the  very 
different  proposition  that  there  is  no  good  evidence 
of  anything  of  the  kind.  And  that  proposition 
has  not  yet  been  shown  to  be  incorrect. 

I  owe  more  than  I  can  tell  to  the  careful  study 
of  the  "  Principles  of  Geology "  in  my  young 
days;  and,  long  before  the  year  1856,  my  mind 
was  familiar  with  the  truth  that  "  the  doctrine  of 
uniformity  is  not  incompatible  with  great  and 
sudden  changes,"  which,  as  I  have  shown,  is 
taught  totid&m  verlis  in  that  work.  Even  had  it 
been  possible  for  me  to  shut  my  eyes  to  the  sense 
of  what  I  had  read  in  the  "  Principles,"  Whewell's 
"  Philosophy  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,"  published 
in  1840,  a  work  with  which  I  was  also  tolerably 
familiar,  must  have  opened  them.  For  the 
always  acute,  if  not  always  profound,  author,  in 
arguing  against  Ly ell's  uniformitarianism,  ex- 
less  degree  by  Lyell,  to  ]ook  beyond  the  limits  of  the  time 
recorded  by  the  stratified  rocks.  I  said  :  ' '  This  attempt  to 
limit,  at  a  particular  point,  the  progress  of  inductive  and  de- 
ductive reasoning  from  the  things  which  are  to  the  things  which 
were — this  faithlessness  to  its  own  logic,  seems  to  me  to  have 
cost  uniformitarianism  the  place  as  the  permanent  form  of  geo- 
logical speculation  which  it  might  otherwise  have  held  "  (Lay 
Sermons, -p.  260).  The  context  shows  that  "uniformitarianism" 
here  means  that  doctrine,  as  limited  in  application  by  Hutton 
and  Lyell,  and  that  what  I  mean  by  "evolutionism"  is  con- 
sistent and  thoroughgoing  uniformitarianism. 


102  SCIENCE  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  n< 

pressly  points  out  that  it  does  not  in  any  way 
contravene  the  occurrence  of  catastrophes. 

With  regard  to  such  occurrences  [earthquakes,  deluges,  etc.], 
terrible  as  th^y  appear  at  the  time,  they  may  not  much  affect 
the  average  rate  of  change  :  there  may  be  a  cycle,  though  an 
irregular  one,  of  rapid  and  slow  change  :  and  if  such  cycles  go 
on  succeeding  each  other,  we  may  still  call  the  order  of  nature 
uniform,  notwithstanding  the  periods  of  violence  which  it  in- 
volves.1 

The  reader  who  has  followed  me  through  this 
brief  chapter  of  the  history  of  geological  philoso- 
phy will  probably  find  the  following  passage  in 
the  paper  of  the  Duke  of  Argyll  to  be  not  a  little 
remarkable : — 

Many  years  ago,  when  I  had  the  honour  of  being  President  of 
the  British  Association,'2 1  ventured  to  point  out,  in  the  presence 
and  in  the  hearing  of  that  most  distinguished  man  [Sir  C.  Lyell] 
that  the  doctrine  of  uniformity  was  not  incompatible  with  great 
and  fsudden  changes,  since  cycles  of  these  and  other  cj7cles  of 
comparative  rest  might  well  be  constituent  parts  of  that  uni- 
formity which  he  asserted.  Lyell  did  not  object  to  this  extended 
interpretation  of  his  own  doctrine,  and  indeed  expressed  to  me 
his  entire  concurrence. 

I  should  think  he  did ;  for,  as  I  have  shown, 
there  was  nothing  in  it  that  Lyell  himself  had  not 
said,  six-and-twenty  years  before,  and  enforced, 
three  years  before ;  and  it  is  almost  verbally 
identical  with  the  view  of  uniformitarianism 
taken  by  Whewell,  sixteen  years  before,  in  a  work 
with  which,  one  would  think,  that  any  one  who 

1  Philosophy  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  vol.  i.  p.  670.  New 
edition,  1847.  2  At  Glasgow  in  1856. 


Ill  SCIENCE    AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  103 

undertakes  to   discuss  the  philosophy  of  science 
should  be  familiar. 

Thirty  years  have  elapsed  since  the  beginner  of 
1856  persuaded  himself  that  he  enlightened  the 
foremost  geologist  of  his  time,  and  one  of  the  most 
acute  and  far-seeing  men  of  science  of  any  time, 
as  to  the  scope  of  the  doctrines  which  the  veteran 
philosopher  had  grown  gray  in  promulgating ; 
and  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  acquaintance  with  the 
literature  of  geology  has  not,  even  now,  become 
sufficiently  profound  to  dissipate  that  pleasant 
delusion. 

If  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  guidance  in  that  branch 
of  physical  science,  with  which  alone  he  has 
given  evidence  of  any  practical  acquaintance,  is 
thus  unsafe,  I  may  breathe  more  freely  in  setting 
my  opinion  against  the  authoritative  deliverances 
of  his  Grace  about  matters  which  lie  outside  the 
province  of  geology. 

And  here  the  Duke's  paper  offers  me  such  a 
wealth  of  opportunities  that  choice  becomes  em- 
barrassing. I  must  bear  in  mind  the  good  old 
adage,  "  Non  multa  sed  multum."  Tempting  as 
it  would  be  to  follow  the  Duke  through  his 
labyrinthine  misunderstandings  of  the  ordinary 
terminology  of  philosophy,  and  to  comment  on 
the  curious  unintelligibility  which  hangs  about 
his  frequent  outpourings  of  fervid  language,  limits 
of  space  oblige  me  to  restrict  myself  to  those 
points,  the  discussion  of  which  may  help  to  en- 


104  SCIENCE    AND    PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

lighten  the  public  in  respect  of  matters  of  more 
importance  than  the  competence  of  my  Mentor 
for  the  task  which  he  has  undertaken. 

I  am  not  sure  when  the  employment  of  the 
word  Law,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  speak  of  laws 
of  nature,  commenced,  but  examples  of  it  may  be 
found  in  the  works  of  Bacon,  Descartes,  and 
Spinoza.  Bacon  employs  "  Law  "  as  the  equiva- 
lent of  "  Form,"  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
he  may  be  responsible  for  a  good  deal  of  the 
confusion  that  has  subsequently  arisen ;  but  I  am 
not  aware  that  the  term  is  used  by  other  authori- 
ties, in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries, 
in  any  other  sense  than  that  of  "rule"  or  "definite 
order"  of  the  coexistence  of  things  or  succession 
of  events  in  nature.  Descartes  speaks  of  "  regies, 
que  je  nomme  les  lois  de  la  nature."  Leibnitz 
says  "  loi  ou  regie  generale,"  as  if  he  considered 
the  terms  interchangeable. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll,  however,  affirms  that  the 
"  law  of  gravitation  "  as  put  forth  by  Newton  was 
something  more  than  the  statement  of  an  observed 
order.  He  admits  that  Kepler's  three  laws  "  were 
an  observed  order  of  facts  and  nothing  more." 
As  to  the  law  of  gravitation,  "  it  contains  an 
element  which  Kepler's  laws  did  not  contain,  even 
an  element  of  causation,  the  recognition  of  which 
belongs  to  a  higher  category  of  intellectual  con- 
ceptions than  that  which  is  concerned  in  the  mere 
observation  and  record  of  separate  and  apparently 


Ill  SCIENCE  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  105 

unconnected  facts."  There  is  hardly  a  line  in 
these  paragraphs  which  appears  to  me  to  be  in- 
disputable. But,  to  confine  myself  to  the  matter 
in  hand,  I  cannot  conceive  that  any  one  who  had 
taken  ordinary  pains  to  acquaint  himself  with  the 
real  nature  of  either  Kepler's  or  Newton's  work 
could  have  written  them.  That  the  labours  of 
Kepler,  of  all  men  in  the  world,  should  be  called 
"  mere  observation  and  record,"  is  truly  wonderful. 
And  any  one  who  will  look  into  the  "  Principia," 
or  the  "  Optics,"  or  the  "  Letters  to  Bentley,"  will 
see,  even  if  he  has  no  more  special  knowledge  of 
the  topics  discussed  than  I  have,  that  Newton 
over  and  over  again  insisted  that  he  had  nothing 
to  do  with  gravitation  as  a  physical  cause,  and 
that  when  he  used  the  terms  attraction,  force,  and 
the  like,  he  employed  them,  as  he  says,  "  mathe- 
matics "  and  not  "  physick" 

How  these  attractions  [of  gravity,  magnetism,  and  electricity] 
may  be  performed,  I  do  not  here  consider.  What  I  call  attrac- 
tion may  be  performed  by  impulse  or  by  some  other  means  un- 
known to  me.  I  use  that  Avoid  here  to  signify  only  in  a  general 
way  any  force  by  which  bodies  tend  towards  one  another,  what- 
ever be  the  cause.1 

According  to  my  reading  of  the  best  authorities 
upon  the  history  of  science,  Newton  discovered 
neither  gravitation,  nor  the  law  of  gravitation ; 
nor  did  he  pretend  to  offer  more  than  a  conjecture 
as  to  the  causation  of  gravitation.     Moreover,  his 

1  Optics,  query  31. 


106  SCIENCE  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

assertion  that  the  notion  of  a  body  acting  where 
it  is  not,  is  one  that  no  competent  thinker  could 
entertain,  is    antagonistic   to    the   whole  current 
conception  of  attractive  and  repulsive  forces,  and 
therefore  of  "  the  attractive  force  of  gravitation." 
What,  then,  was  that  labour  of  unsurpassed  mag- 
nitude and  excellence  and  of  immortal  influence 
which  Newton  did  perform  ?     In  the  first  place, 
Newton  defined  the  laws,  rules,  or  observed  order 
of  the  phenomena  of  motion,  which  come  under 
our  daily  observation,  with  greater  precision  than 
had  been  before  attained  ;  and,  by  following  out, 
with  marvellous  power  and  subtlety,  the  mathe- 
matical consequences    of  these    rules,  he  almost 
created   the   modern  science  of  pure  mechanics. 
In  the  second  place,  applying  exactly  the  same 
method  to  the  explication  of  the  facts  of  astro- 
nomy as  that  which  was  applied  a  century  and  a 
half  later  to  the  facts  of  geology  by  Lyell,  he  set 
himself  to  solve  the  following  problem.    Assuming 
that  all  bodies,  free  to  move,  tend  to  approach 
one  another  as  the  earth  and  the  bodies  on  it  do ; 
assuming  that  the  strength   of  that  tendency  is 
directly  as  the  mass  and  inversely  as  the  squares 
of  the   distances  ;    assuming    that    the    laws    of 
motion,  'determined    for    terrestrial    bodies,   hold 
good   throughout   the    universe  ;    assuming   that 
the  planets  and  their  satellites  were  created  and 
placed  at  their  observed  mean  distances,  and  that 
each  received  a  certain  impulse  from  the  Creator ; 


Ill  SCIENCE    AND    PSEUDO-SCIENCE  107 

will  the  form  of  the  orbits,  the  varying  rates  of 
motion  of  the  planets,  and  the  ratio  between 
those  rates  and  their  distances  from  the  sun, 
which  must  follow  by  mathematical  reasoning 
from  these  premisses,  agree  with  the  order  of 
facts  determined  by  Kepler  and  others,  or  not  ? 

Newton,  employing  mathematical  methods 
which  are  the  admiration  of  adepts,  but  which 
no  one  but  himself  appears  to  have  been  able 
to  use  with  ease,  not  only  answered  this  question 
in  the  affirmative,  but  stayed  not  his  constructive 
genius  before  it  had  founded  modern  physical 
astronomy. 

The  historians  of  mechanical  and  of  astronomi- 
cal science  appear  to  be  agreed  that  he  was  the 
first  person  who  clearly  and  distinctly  put  forth 
the  hypothesis  that  the  phenomena  comprehended 
under  the  general  name  of  "gravity"  follow  the 
same  order  throughout  the  universe,  and  that  all 
material  bodies  exhibit  these  phenomena ;  so  that, 
in  this  sense,  the  idea  of  universal  gravitation 
may,  doubtless,  be  properly  ascribed  to  him. 

Newton  proved  that  the  laws  of  Kepler  were 
particular  consequences  of  the  laws  of  motion 
and  the  law  of  gravitation — in  other  words,  the 
reason  of  the  first  lay  in  the  two  latter.  But  to 
talk  of  the  law  of  gravitation  alone  as  the  reason 
of  Kepler's  laws,  and  still  more  as  standing  in 
any  causal  relation  to  Kepler's  laws,  is  simply  a 
misuse  of  language.     It  would  really  be  interest- 


108  SCIENCE  AND    PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

ing  if  the  Duke  of  Argyll  would  explain  how  he 
proposes  to  set  ab  nit  showing  that  the  elliptical 
form  of  the  orbits  of  the  planets,  the  constant 
area  described  by  the  radius  vector,  and  the 
proportionality  of  the  squares  of  the  periodic 
times  to  the  cubes  of  the  distances  from  the  sun, 
are  either  caused  by  the  "  force  of  gravitation  " 
or  deducible  from  the  "  law  of  gravitation." 
I  conceive  that  it  would  be  about  as  apposite  to 
say  that  the  various  compounds  of  nitrogen  with 
oxygen  are  caused  by  chemical  attraction  and 
deducible  from  the  atomic  theory. 

Newton  assuredly  lent  no  shadow  of  support  to 
the  modern  pseudo-scientific  philosophy  which 
confounds  laws  with  causes.  I  have  not  taken 
the,  trouble  to  trace  out  this  commonest  of 
fallacies  to  its  first  beginning  ;  but  I  was  familiar 
with  it  in  full  bloom,  more  than  thirty  years  ago, 
in  a  work  which  had  a  great  vogue  in  its  day — the 
"  Vestiges  of  the  Natural  History  of  Creation  " — 
of  which  the  first  edition  was  published  in  1844. 

It  is  full  of  apt  and  forcible  illustrations  of 
pseudo-scientific  realism.  Consider,  for  example, 
this  gem  serene.  When  a  boy  who  has  climbed  a 
tree  loses  his  hold  of  the  branch,  "the  law  of 
gravitation  unrelentingly  pulls  him  to  the  ground, 
and  then  he  is  hurt,"  whereby  the  Almighty  is 
quite  relieved  from  any  responsibility  for  the 
accident.      Here   is   the    "  law    of    gravitation  " 


Ill  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  109 

acting  as  a  cause  in  a  way  quite  in  accordance 
with  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  conception  of  it.  In 
fact,  in  the  mind  of  the  author  of  the  "  Vestiges," 
"  laws  "  are  existences  intermediate  between  the 
Creator  and  His  works,  like  the  "  ideas "  of  the 
Platonisers  or  the  Lo^os  of  the  Alexandrians.1 
I  may  cite  a  passage  which  is  quite  in  the  vein  of 
Philo:— 

We  have  seen  powerful  evidences  that  the  construction  of  this 
globe  and  its  associates  ;  and,  inferentially,  that  of  all  the  other 
globes  in  space,  was  the  result,  not  of  any  immediate  or  personal 
exertion  on  the  part  of  the  Deity,  but  of  natural  laws  which  are 
the  expression  of  His  will.  What  is  to  hinder  our  supposing 
that  the  organic  creation  is  also  a  result  of  natural  laws 
which  are  in  like  manner  an  expression  of  His  will  ?  (p.  154,  1st 
edition). 

And  creation  "  operating  by  law  "  is  constantly 
cited  as  relieving  the  Creator  from  trouble  about 
insignificant  details. 

I  am  perplexed  to  picture  to  myself  the  state  of 
mind  which  accepts  these  verbal  juggleries.  It  is 
intelligible  that  the  Creator  should  operate 
according  to  such  rules  as  he  might  think  fit  to 
lay  down  for  himself  (and  therefore  according  to 
law)  ;  but  that  would  leave  the  operation  of  his 
will  just  as  much  a  direct  personal  act  as  it  would 
be  under  any  other  circumstances.  I  can  also 
understand  that  (as  in  Leibnitz's  caricature  of 
Newton's  views)  the    Creator  might  have  made 

1  The  author  recognises  this  in  his  Explanations. 


110  SCIENCE  AND  PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

the  cosmical  machine,  and,  after  setting  it  going, 
have  left  it  to  itself  till  it  needed  repair.  But 
then,  by  the  supposition,  his  personal  responsi- 
bility would  have  been  involved  in  all  that  it  did ; 
just  as  much  as  a  dynamiter  is  responsible  for 
what  happens,  when  he  has  set  his  machine  going 
and  left  it  to  explode. 

The  only  hypothesis  which  gives  a  sort  of  mad 
consistency  to  the  Vestigiarian's  views  is  the 
supposition  that  laws  are  a  kind  of  angels  or 
demiurgoi,  who,  being  supplied  with  the  Great 
Architect's  plan,  were  permitted  to  settle  the 
details  among  themselves.  Accepting  this  doc- 
trine, the  conception  of  royal  laws  and  plebeian 
laws,  and  of  those  more  than  Homeric  contests  in 
which  the  big  laws  "  wreck "  the  little  ones, 
becomes  quite  intelligible.  And,  in  fact,  the 
honour  of  the  paternity  of  those  remarkable  ideas 
which  come  into  full  flower  in  the  preacher's  dis- 
course, must,  so  far  as  my  imperfect  knowledge 
goes,  be  attributed  to  the  author  of  the  "  Vestiges." 

But  the  author  of  the  "  Vestiges "  is  not  the 
only  writer  who  is  responsible  for  the  current 
pseudo- scientific  mystifications  which  hang  about 
the  term  "  law."  When  I  wrote  my  paper  about 
"  Scientific  and  Pseudo-Scientific  Realism,"  I  had 
not  read  a  work  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  "  The 
Reign  of  Law,"  which,  I  believe,  has  enjoyed, 
possibly  still  enjoys,  a  widespread  popularity. 
But  the  vivacity  of  the  Duke's  attack  led  me  to 


Ill  SCIENCE  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  111 

think  it  possible  that  criticisms  directed  else- 
where might  have  come  home  to  him.  And,  in 
fact,  I  find  that  the  second  chapter  of  the  work  in 
question,  which  is  entitled  "  Law ;  its  definitions," 
is,  from  my  point  of  view,  a  sort  of  "  summa "  of 
pseudo-scientific  philosophy.  It  will  be  worth 
while  to  examine  it  in  some  detail. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the 
author  of  the  "  Reign  of  Law  "  admits  that  "  law," 
in  many  cases,  means  nothing  more  than  the 
statement  of  the  order  in  which  facts  occur,  or,  as 
he  says,  "  an  observed  order  of  facts "  (p.  66). 
But  his  appreciation  of  the  value  of  accuracy  of 
expression  does  not  hinder  him  from  adding, 
almost  in  the  same  breath,  "  In  this  sense  the 
laws  of  nature  are  simply  those  facts  of  nature 
which  recur  according  to  rule  "  (p.  66).  Thus 
"  laws,"  which  were  rightly  said  to  be  the  state- 
ment of  an  order  of  facts  in  one  paragraph,  are 
declared  to  be  the  facts  themselves  in  the  next. 

We  are  next  told  that,  though  it  may  be 
customary  and  permissible  to  use  "law"  in  the 
sense  of  a  statement  of  the  order  of  facts,  this  is 
a  low  use  of  the  word ;  and,  indeed,  two  pages 
farther  on,  the  writer,  flatly  contradicting  himself, 
altogether  denies  its  admissibility. 

A  n  observed  order  of  facts,  to  be  entitled  to  the  rank  of  a  law, 
must  be  an  order  so  constant  and  uniform  as  to  indicate  necessity, 
and  necessity  can  only  arise  out  of  the  action  of  some  compelling 
force  (p.  68). 

123 


112  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

This  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  singular 
propositions  that  I  have  ever  met  with  in  a 
professedly  scientific  work,  and  its  rarity  is 
embellished  by  another  direct  self-contradiction 
which  it  implies.  For  on  the  preceding  page 
(67),  when  the  Duke  of  Argyll  is  speaking  of  the 
laws  of  Kepler,  which  he  admits  to  be  laws,  and 
which  are  types  of  that  which  men  of  science 
understand  by  "laws,"  he  says  that  they  are 
"  simply  and  purely  an  order  of  facts."  Moreover, 
he  adds  :  "  A  very  large  proportion  of  the  laws  of 
every  science  are  laws  of  this  kind  and  in  this 
sense." 

If,  according  to  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  admission, 
law  is  understood,  in  this  sense,  thus  widely  and 
constantly  by  scientific  authorities,  where  is  the 
justification  for  his  unqualified  assertion  that  such 
statements  of  the  observed  order  of  facts  are  not 
"  entitled  to  the  rank  "  of  laws  ? 

But  let  us  examine  the  consequences  of  the 
really  interesting  proposition  I  have  just  quoted. 
I  presume  that  it  is  a  law  of  nature  that  "  a 
straight  line  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two 
points."  This  law  affirms  the  constant  association 
of  a  certain  fact  of  form  with  a  certain  fact  of 
dimension.  Whether  the  notion  of  necessity 
which  attaches  to  it  has  an  a  'priori  or  an  a 
posteriori  origin  is  a  question  not  relevant  to  the 
present  discussion.  But  I  would  beg  to  be 
informed,  if  it  is  necessary,  where   is  the   "  com- 


HI  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  113 

pelling  force  "  out  of  which  the  necessity  arises  ; 
and  further,  if  it  is  not  necessary,  whether  it  loses 
the  character  of  a  law  of  nature  ? 

I  take  it  to  be  a  law  of  nature,  based  on  unex- 
ceptionable evidence,  that  the  mass  of  matter 
remains  unchanged,  whatever  chemical  or  other 
modifications  it  may  undergo.  This  law  is  one  of 
the  foundations  of  chemistry.  But  it  is  by  no 
means  necessary.  It  is  quite  possible  to  imagine 
that  the  mass  of  matter  should  vary  according  to 
circumstances,  as  we  know  its  weight  does.  More- 
over, the  determination  of  the  "  force "  which 
makes  mass  constant  (if  there  is  any  intelligi- 
bility in  that  form  of  words)  would  not,  so  far  as 
I  can  see,  confer  any  more  validity  ,on  the  law 
than  it  has  now. 

There  is  a  law  of  nature,  so  well  vouched  by 
experience,  that  all  mankind,  from  pure  logicians 
in  search  of  examples  to  parish  sextons  in  search 
of  fees,  confide  in  it.  This  is  the  law  that  "  all 
men  are  mortal."  It  is  simply  a  statement  of 
the  observed  order  of  facts  that  all  men  sooner  or 
later  die.  I  am  not  acquainted  with  any  law  of 
nature  which  is  more  "  constant  and  uniform " 
than  this.  But  will  any  one  tell  me  that  death  is 
"  necessary "  ?  Certainly  there  is  no  a  priori 
necessity  in  the  case,  for  various  men  have  been 
imagined  to  be  immortal.  And  I  should  be  glad 
to  be  informed  of  any  "  necessity "  that  can  be 
deduced    from   biological   considerations.      It    is 


114  SCIENCE   AND  PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

quite  conceivable,  as  has  recently  been  pointed 
out,  that  some  of  the  lowest  forms  of  life  may 
be  immortal,  after  a  fashion.  However  this 
may  be,  I  would  further  ask,  supposing  "  all  men 
are  mortal "  to  be  a  real  law  of  nature,  where  and 
what  is  that  to  which,  with  any  propriety,  the 
title  of  "compelling  force"  of  the  law  can  be 
given  ? 

On  page  69,  the  Duke  of  Argyll  asserts  that  the 
law  of  gravitation  "  is  a  law  in  the  sense,  not 
merely  of  a  rule,  but  of  a  cause."  But  this 
revival  of  the  teaching  of  the  "Vestiges"  has 
already  been  examined  and  disposed  of;  and  when 
the  Duke  of  Argyll  states  that  the  "  observed 
order  "  which  Kepler  had  discovered  was  simply  a 
necessary  consequence  of  the  force  of  "gravita- 
tion," I  need  not  recapitulate  the  evidence  which 
proves  such  a  statement  to  be  wholly  fallacious. 
But  it  may  be  useful  to  say,  once  more,  that,  at 
this  present  moment,  nobody  knows  anything 
about  the  existence  of  a  "  force  "  of  gravitation 
apart  from  the  fact ;  that  Newton  declared  the 
ordinary  notion  of  such  force  to  be  inconceivable ; 
that  various  attempts  have  been  made  to  account 
for  the  order  of  facts  we  call  gravitation,  without 
recourse  to  the  notion  of  attractive  force  ;  that,  if 
such  a  force  exists,  it  is  utterly  incompetent  to 
account  for  Kepler's  laws,  without  taking  into  the 
reckoning  a  great  number  of  other  considerations  ; 
and,  finally,  that  all  we  know  about  the  "  force  " 


Ill  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  115 

of  gravitation,  or  any  other  so-called  "force,"  is 
that  it  is  a  name  for  the  hypothetical  cause  of  an 
observed  order  of  facts. 

Thus,  when  the  Duke  of  Argyll  says  :  "  Force,  as- 
certained according  to  some  measure  of  its  operation 
— this  is  indeed  one  of  the  definitions,  but  only 
one,  of  a  scientific  law  "  (p.  71)  I  reply  that  it  is  a 
definition  which  must  be  repudiated  by  every  one 
who  possesses  an  adequate  acquaintance  with 
either  the  facts,  or  the  philosophy,  of  science,  and  be 
relegated  to  the  limbo  of  pseudo-scientific  fallacies. 
If  the  human  mind  had  never  entertained  this 
notion  of  "force,"  nay,  if  it  substituted  bare  in- 
variable succession  for  the  ordinary  notion  of 
causation,  the  idea  of  law,  as  the  expression  of  a 
constantly-observed  order,  which  generates  a  cor- 
responding intensity  of  expectation  in  our  minds, 
would  have  exactly  the  same  value,  and  play  its 
part  in  real  science,  exactly  as  it  does  now. 

It  is  needless  to  extend  further  the  present 
excursus  on  the  origin  and  history  of  modern 
pseudo-science.  Under  such  high  patronage  as 
it  has  enjoyed,  it  has  grown  and  flourished  until, 
nowadays,  it  is  becoming  somewhat  rampant. 
It  has  its  weekly  "  Ephemerides,"  in  which  every 
new  pseudo-scientific  mare's-nest  is  hailed  and 
belauded  with  the  unconscious  unfairness  of 
ignorance  ;  and  an  army  of  "  reconcilers,"  enlisted 
in  its  service,  whose  business  seems  to  be  to  mix 
the  black  of  dogma  and  the  white  of  science  into 


J 16  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

the    neutral    tint    of    what     they     call     liberal 
theology. 

I  remember  that,  not  long  after  the  publication  of 
the  "  Vestiges,"  a  shrewd  and  sarcastic  countryman 
of  the  author  denned  it  as  "  cauld  kail  made  het 
again."  A  cynic  might  find  amusement  in  the 
reflection  that,  at  the  present  time,  the  principles 
and  the  methods  of  the  much-vilified  Yestigiarian 
are  being  "made  het  again";  and  are  not  only 
"  echoed  by  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's,"  but  thundered 
from  the  castle  of  Inverary.  But  my  turn  of 
mind  is  not  cynical,  and  I  can  but  regret  the 
waste  of  time  and  energy  bestowed  on  the  en- 
deavour to  deal  with  the  most  difficult  problems 
of  science,  by  those  who  have  neither  undergone 
the  discipline,  nor  possess  the  information,  which 
are  indispensable  to  the  successful  issue  of  such 
an  enterprise. 

I  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark  that  the 
Duke  of  Argyll's  views  of  the  conduct  of  con- 
troversy are  different  from  mine  ;  and  this  much- 
to-be  lamented  discrepancy  becomes  yet  more 
accentuated  when  the  Duke  reaches  biological 
topics.  Anything  that  was  good  enough  for  Sir 
Charles  Lyell,  in  his  department  of  study,  is  cer- 
tainly good  enough  for  me  in  mine  ;  and  I  by  no 
means  demur  to  being  pedagogically  instructed 
about  a  variety  of  matters  with  which  it  has  been 
the  business  of  my  life  to  try  to  acquaint  myself. 
But   the   Duke    of  Argyll    is   not   content  with 


Ill  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  117 

favouring  me  with  his  opinions  about  my  own 
business ;  he  also  answers  for  mine ;  and,  at  that 
point,  really  the  worm  must  turn.  I  am  told 
that  "  no  one  knows  better  than  Professor 
Huxley  "  a  variety  of  things  which  I  really  do  not 
know;  and  I  am  said  to  be  a  disciple  of  that 
"  Positive  Philosophy "  which  I  have,  over  and 
over  again,  publicly  repudiated  in  language  which 
is  certainly  not  lacking  in  intelligibility,  whatever 
may  be  its  other  defects. 

I  am  told  that  I  have  been  amusing  myself 
with  a  "  metaphysical  exercitation  or  logomachy  " 
(may  I  remark  incidentally  that  these  are  not 
quite  convertible  terms  ?),  when,  to  the  best  of  my 
belief,  I  have  been  trying  to  expose  a  process 
of  mystification,  based  upon  the  use  of  scientific 
language  by  writers  who  exhibit  no  sign  of 
scientific  training,  of  accurate  scientific  knowledge, 
or  of  clear  ideas  respecting  the  philosophy  of 
science,  which  is  doing  very  serious  harm  to  the 
public.  Naturally  enough,  they  take  the  lion's 
skin  of  scientific  phraseology  for  evidence  that  the 
voice  which  issues  from  beneath  it  is  the  voice  of 
science,  and  I  desire  to  relieve  them  from  the 
consequences  of  their  error. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  asks,  apparently  with 
sorrow  that  it  should  be  his  duty  .to  subject  me  to 
reproof — 

"What  shall  we  say  of  a  philosophy  which  confounds  the  organic 
with  the  inorganic,  and,  refusing  to  take  note  of  a  difference  so 


118  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

profound,  assumes  to  explain  under  one  common  abstraction, 
the  movements  due  to  gravitation  and  the  movements  due  to  the 
mind  of  man  ? 

To  which  I  may  fitly  reply  by  another  question  : 
What  shall  we  say  to  a  controversialist,  who 
attributes  to  the  subject  of  his  attack  opinions 
which  are  notoriously  not  his;  and  expresses 
himself  in  such  a  manner  that  it  is  obvious  he  is 
unacquainted  with  even  the  rudiments  of  that 
knowledge  which  is  necessary  to  the  discussion 
into  which  he  has  rushed  ? 

What  line  of  my  writing  can  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
produce  which  confounds  the  organic  with  the  in- 
organic ? 

As  to  the  latter  half  of  the  paragraph,  I  have 
to  confess  a  doubt  whether  it  has  any  definite 
meaning.  But  I  imagine  that  the  Duke  is  alluding 
to  my  assertion  that  the  law  of  gravitation  is  nowise 
"  suspended  "  or  "  defied "  when  a  man  lifts  his 
arm ;  but  that,  under  such  circumstances,  part  of 
the  store  of  energy  in  the  universe  operates  on  the 
arm  at  a  mechanical  advantage  as  against  the 
operation  of  another  part.  I  was  simple  enough 
to  think  that  no  one  who  had  as  much  knowledge 
of  physiology  as  is  to  be  found  in  an  elementary 
primer,  or  who  had  ever  heard  of  the  greatest 
physical  generalisation  of  modern  times — the 
doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy — would 
dream  of  doubting  my  statement;  and  I  was 
further  simple  enough  to  think  that  no  one  who 


Ill  SCIENCE  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  119 

lacked  these  qualifications  would  feel  tempted  to 
charge  me  with  error.  It  appears  that  my  sim- 
plicity is  greater  than  my  powers  of  imagination. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  may  not  be  aware  of  the 
fact,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that  when  a  man's 
arm  is  raised,  in  sequence  to  that  state  of  con- 
sciousness we  call  a  volition,  the  volition  is  not  the 
immediate  cause  of  the  elevation  of  the  arm.  On 
the  contrary,  that  operation  is  effected  by  a  certain 
change  of  form,  technically  known  as  "  contraction  " 
in  sundry  masses  of  flesh,  technically  known  as 
muscles,  which  are  fixed  to  the  bones  of  the 
shoulder  in  such  a  manner  that,  if  these  muscles 
contract,  they  must  raise  the  arm.  Now  each  of 
these  muscles  is  a  machine  comparable,  in  a 
certain  sense,  to  one  of  the  donkey-engines  of  a 
steamship,  but  more  complete,  inasmuch  as  the 
source  of  its  ability  to  change  its  form,  or  contract, 
lies  within  itself.  Every  time  that,  by  contractiug, 
the  muscle  does  work,  such  as  that  involved  in 
raising  the  arm,  more  or  less  of  the  material  which 
it  contains  is  used  up,  just  as  more  or  less  of  the 
fuel  of  a  steam-engine  is  used  up,  when  it  does 
work.  And  I  do  not  think  there  is  a  doubt  in  the 
mind  of  any  competent  physicist,  or  physiologist, 
that  the  work  done  in  lifting  the  weight  of  the  arm 
is  the  mechanical  equivalent  of  a  certain  proportion 
of  the  energy  set  free  by  the  molecular  changes 
which  take  place  in  the  muscle.  It  is  further  a 
tolerably  well-based  belief  that  this,  and  all  other 


120  SCIENCE  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

forms  of  energy,  are  mutually  convertible;  and, 
therefore,  that  they  all  come  under  that  general 
law  or  statement  of  the  order  of  facts,  called 
the  conservation  of  energy.  And,  as  that  certainly 
is  an  abstraction,  so  the  view  which  the  Duke  of 
Argyll  thinks  so  extremely  absurd  is  really  one  of 
the  commonplaces  of  physiology.  But  this  Review 
is  hardly  an  appropriate  place  for  giving  instruction 
in  the  elements  of  that  science,  and  I  content 
myself  with  recommending  the  Duke  of  Argyll  to 
devote  some  study  to  Book  II.  chap.  v.  section  4 
of  my  friend  Dr.  Foster's  excellent  text-book  of 
Physiology  (1st  edition,  1877,  p.  321),  which  begins 
thus : — 

Broadly  speaking,  the  animal  body  is  a  machine  for  converting 
potential  into  actual  energy.  The  potential  energy  is  supplied 
by  the  food  ;  this  the  metabolism  of  the  body  converts  into  the 
actual  energy  of  heat  and  mechanical  labour. 

There  is  no  more  difficult  problem  in  the  world 
than  that  of  the  relation  of  the  state  of  conscious- 
ness, termed  volition,  to  the  mechanical  work 
which  frequently  follows  upon  it.  But  no  one  can 
even  comprehend  the  nature  of  the  problem,  who 
has  not  carefully  studied  the  long  series  of  modes 
of  motion  which,  without  a  break,  connect  the 
energy  which  does  that  work  with  the  general 
store  of  energy.  The  ultimate  form  of  the 
problem  is  this :  Have  we  any  reason  to  believe 
that  a  feeling,  or  state  of  consciousness,  is  capable 


ni  SCIENCE  AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  121 

of  directly  affecting  the  motion  of  even  the  small- 
est conceivable  molecule  of  matter  ?  Is  such  a 
thing  even  conceivable  ?  If  we  answer  these 
questions  in  the  negative,  it  follows  that  volition 
may  be  a  sign,  but  cannot  be  a  cause,  of  bodily 
motion.  If  we  answer  them  in  the  affirmative,  then 
states  of  consciousness  become  undistinguishable 
from  material  things  ;  for  it  is  the  essential  nature 
of  matter  to  be  the  vehicle  or  substratum  of 
mechanical  energy. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  all  this.  I  have 
merely  put  into  modern  language  the  .issue 
raised  by  Descartes  more  than  two  centuries  ago. 
The  philosophies  of  the  Occasionalists,  of  Spinoza, 
of  Malebranche,  of  modern  idealism  and  modern 
materialism,  have  all  grown  out  of  the  contro- 
versies which  Cartesianism  evoked.  Of  all  this 
the  pseudo-science  of  the  present  time  appears  to 
be  unconscious ;  otherwise  it  would  hardly  content 
itself  with  <:  making  het  again  "  the  pseud o- science 
of  the  past. 

In  the  course  of  these  observations  I  have 
already  had  occasion  to  express  my  appreciation 
of  the  copious  and  perfervid  eloquence  which 
enriches  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  pages.  I  am 
almost  ashamed  that  a  constitutional  insensibility 
to  the  Sirenian  charms  of  rhetoric  has  permitted 
me,  in  wandering  through  these  flowery  meads,  to 
be  attracted,  almost  exclusively,  to  the  bare 
places  of  fallacy  and  the  stony  grounds  of  deficient 


122  SCIENCE   AND   PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

information,  which  are  disguised,  though  not  con- 
cealed, by  these  floral  decorations.  But,  in  his 
concluding  sentences,  the  Duke  soars  into  a 
Tyrtsean  strain  which  roused  even  my  dull  soul. 

It  was  high,  time,  indeed,  that  some  revolt  should  be  raised 
against  that  Reign  of  Terror  which  had  come  to  be  established 
in  the  scientific  world  under  the  abuse  of  a  great  name  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  has  not  joined  this  revolt  openly,  for  as  yet,  in- 
deed, it  is  only  beginning  to  raise  its  head.  But  more  than  once 
— and  very  lately — he  has  uttered  a  warning  voice  against  the 
shallow  dogmatism  that  has  provoked  it.  The  time  is  coming 
when  that  revolt  will  be  carried  further.  Higher  interpretations 
will  be  established.  Unless  I  am  much  mistaken,  they  are 
already  coming  in  sight  (p.  339). 

I  have  been  living  very  much  out  of  the  world 
for  the  last  two  or  three  years,  and  when  I  read 
this  denunciatory  outburst,  as  of  one  filled  with 
the  spirit  of  prophecy,  I  said  to  myself,  "  Mercy 
upon  us,  wha,t  has  happened  ?  Can  it  be  that  X. 
and  Y.  (it  would  be  wrong  to  mention  the  names 
of  the  vigorous  young  friends  which  occurred  to 
me)  are  playing  Danton  and  Robespierre ;  and 
that  a  guillotine  is  erected  in  the  courtyard  of 
Burlington  House  for  the  benefit  of  all  anti- 
Darwinian  Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society  ?  Where 
are  the  secret  conspirators  against  this  tyranny, 
whom  I  am  supposed  to  favour,  and  yet  not  have 
the  courage  to  join  openly  ?  And  to  think  of  my 
poor  oppressed  friend,  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer, '  com- 
pelled to  speak  with  bated  breath '  (p.  338) 
certainly  for  the  first  time  in  my  thirty-odd  years' 


m  SCIENCE  AND  PSEUDO-SCIENCE  123 

acquaintance  with  him  ! "  My  alarm  and  horror 
at  the  supposition  that,  while  I  had  been  fiddling 
(or  at  any  rate  physicking),  my  beloved  Rome 
had  been  burning,  in  this  fashion,  may  be 
imagined. 

I  am  sure  the  Duke  of  Argyll  will  be  glad  to 
hear  that  the  anxiety  he  created  was  of  extremely 
short  duration.  It  is  my  privilege  to  have  access 
to  the  best  sources  of  information,  and  nobody  in 
the  scientific  world  can  tell  me  anything  about 
either  the  "Reign  of  Terror"  or  "the  Revolt." 
In  fact,  the  scientific  world  laughs  most  inde- 
corously at  the  notion  of  the  existence  of  either ; 
and  some  are  so  lost  to  the  sense  of  the  scientific 
dignity,  that  they  descend  to  the  use  of  trans- 
atlantic slang,  and  call  it  a  "  bogus  scare."  As  to 
my  friend  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  I  have  every 
reason  to  know  that,  in  the  "  Factors  of  Organic 
Evolution,"  he  has  said  exactly  what  was  in  his 
mind,  without  any  particular  deference  to  the 
opinions  of  the  person  whom  he  is  pleased  to 
regard  as  his  most  dangerous  critic  and  Devil's 
Advocate-General,  and  still  less  of  any  one  else. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
pictures  himself  as  the  Tallien  of  this  imaginary 
revolt  against  a  no  less  imaginary  Reign  of  Terror. 
But  if  so,  I  most  respectfully  but  firmly  decline 
to  join  his  forces.  It  is  only  a  few  weeks  since  I 
happened  to  read  over  again  the  first  article 
which  I  ever  wrote  (now  twenty-seven  years  ago) 


124  SCIENCE  AND    PSEUDO-SCIENCE  m 

on  the  "  Origin  of  Species,"  and  I  found  nothing 
that  I  wished  to  modify  in  the  opinions  that  are 
there  expressed,  though  the  subsequent  vast 
accumulation  of  evidence  in  favour  of  Mr.  Dar- 
win's views  would  give  me  much  to  add.  As  is 
the  case  with  all  new  doctrines,  so  with  that  of 
Evolution,  the  enthusiasm  of  advocates  has  some- 
times tended  to  degenerate  into  fanaticism ;  and 
mere  speculation  has,  at  times,  threatened  to 
shoot  beyond  its  legitimate  bounds.  I  have 
occasionally  thought  it  wise  to  warn  the  more 
adventurous  spirits  among  us  against  these 
dangers,  in  sufficiently  plain  language ;  and  I 
have  sometimes  jestingly  said  that  I  expected, 
if  I  lived  long  enough,  to  be  looked  on  as  a 
reactionary  by  some  of  my  more  ardent  friends. 
But  nothing  short  of  midsummer  madness  can 
account  for  the  fiction  that  I  am  waiting  till  it  is 
safe  to  join  openly  a  revolt,  hatched  by  some 
person  or  persons  unknown,  against  an  intellectual 
movement  with  which  I  am  in  the  most  entire 
and  hearty  sympathy.  It  is  a  great  many  years 
since,  at  the  outset  of  my  career,  I  had  to  think 
seriously  what  life  had  to  offer  that  was  worth 
having.  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  chief 
good,  for  me,  was  freedom  to  learn,  think,  and  say 
what  I  pleased,  when  I  pleased.  I  have  acted  on 
that  conviction,  and  have  availed  myself  of  the 
"  rara  temporum  felicitas  ubi  sentire  quad  velis,  et 
quae  sentias  dicere  licet,"  which  is  now  enjoyable, 


Ill  SCIENCE  AND    PSEUDO-SCIENCE  125 

to  the  best  of  my  ability  ;  and  though  strongly, 
and   perhaps  wisely,  warned  that  I  should  prob- 
ably come  to  grief,  I  am   entirely  satisfied  with 
the  results  of  the  line  of  action  I  have  adopted. 
My  career  is  at  an  end.     I  have 

Warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life  ; 

and  nothing  is  left  me,  before  I  depart,  but  to 
help,  or  at  any  rate  to  abstain  from  hindering, 
the  younger  generation  of  men  of  science  in  doing 
better  service  to  the  cause  we  have  at  heart  than 
I  have  been  able  to  render. 

And  yet,  forsooth,  I  am  supposed  to  be  waiting 
for  the  signal  of  "  revolt,"  which  some  fiery  spirits 
among  these  young  men  are  to  raise  before  I  dare 
express  my  real  opinions  concerning  questions 
about  which  we  older  men  had  to  fight,  in  the 
teeth  of  fierce  public  opposition  and  obloquy — of 
something  which  might  almost  justify  even  the 
grandiloquent  epithet  of  a  Reign  of  Terror — 
before  our  excellent  successors  had  left  school. 

It  would  appear  that  the  spirit  of  pseudo- 
science  has  impregnated  even  the  imagination  of 
the  Duke  of  Argyll.  The  scientific  imagination 
always  restrains  itself  within  the  limits  of  prob- 
ability. 


IV 

AN  EPISCOPAL  TRILOGY 

[1887] 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  old  adage  that  a 
burnt  child  dreads  the  fire,  I  ought  to  be  very 
loath  to  touch  a  sermon,  while  the  memory  of  what 
befell  me  on  a  recent  occasion,  possibly  not  yet 
forgotten  by  the  readers  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
is  uneffaced.  But  I  suppose  that  even  the  distin- 
guished censor  of  that  unheard-of  audacity  to 
which  not  even  the  newspaper  report  of  a  sermon 
is  sacred,  can  hardly  regard  a  man  of  science  as 
either  indelicate  or  presumptuous,  if  he  ventures 
to  offer  some  comments  upon  three  discourses, 
specially  addressed  to  the  great  assemblage  of 
men  of  science  which  recently  gathered  at 
Manchester,  by  three  bishops  of  the  State  Church. 
On  my  return  to  England  not  long  ago,  I  found  a 
pamphlet 1  containing  a  version,  which  I  presume 

1   The  Advance  of  Science.     Three  sermons  preached  in  Man- 
chester Cathedral  on  Sunday,  September  4,  1887,  during  the 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  127 

to  be  authorised,  of  these  sermons,  among  the 
huge  mass  of  letters  and  papers  which  had 
accumulated  during  two  months'  absence ;  and  I 
have  read  them  not  only  with  attentive  interest, 
but  with  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  which  is  quite 
new  to  me  as  a  result  of  hearing,  or  reading, 
sermons.  These  excellent  discourses,  in  fact, 
appear  to  me  to  signalise  a  new  departure  in  the 
course  adopted  by  theology  towards  science,  and 
to  indicate  the  possibility  of  bringing  about  an 
honourable  modus  vivendi  between  the  two.  How 
far  the  three  bishops  speak  as  accredited  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Church  is  a  question  to  be 
considered  by  and  by.  Most  assuredly,  I  am  not 
authorised  to  represent  any  one  but  myself.  But 
I  suppose  that  there  must  be  a  good  many  people 
in  the  Church  of  the  bishops'  way  of  thinking ; 
and  I  have  reason  to  believe  that,  in  the  ranks  of 
science,  there  are  a  good  many  persons  who,  more 
or  less,  share  my  views.  And  it  is  to  these  sensible 
people  on  both  sides,  as  the  bishops  and  I  must 
needs  think  those  who  agree  with  us,  that  my 
present  observations  are  addressed.  They  will 
probably  be  astonished  to  learn  how  insignificant, 
in  principle,  their  differences  are. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  discourses  of  the 
three  prelates   without   being   impressed  by  the 

meeting  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  by  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  the  Bishop  of  Bedford,  and 
the  Bishop  of  Manchester. 

124 


128  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

knowledge  which  they  display,  and  by  the  spirit 
of  equity,  I  might  say  of  generosity,  towards 
science  which  pervades  them.  There  is  no  trace 
of  that  tacit  or  open  assumption  that  the  rejection 
of  theological  dogmas,  on  scientific  grounds,  is  due 
to  moral  perversity,  which  is  the  ordinary  note  of 
ecclesiastical  homilies  on  this  subject,  and  which 
makes  them  look  so  supremely  silly  to  men  whose 
lives  have  been  spent  in  wrestling  with  these 
questions.  There  is  no  attempt  to  hide  away  real 
stumbling-blocks  under  rhetorical  stucco ;  no  resort 
to  the  tu  quoque  device  of  setting  scientific  blun- 
ders against  theological  errors ;  no  suggestion  that 
an  honest  man  may  keep  contradictory  beliefs  in 
separate  pockets  of  his  brain  ;  no  question  that  the 
method  of  scientific  investigation  is  valid,  what- 
ever the  results  to  which  it  may  lead ;  and  that  the 
search  after  truth,  and  truth  only,  ennobles  the 
searcher  and  leaves  no  doubt  that  his  life,  at  any 
rate,  is  worth  living.  The  Bishop  of  Carlisle 
declares  himself  pledged  to  the  belief  that  "  the 
advancement  of  science,  the  progress  of  human 
knowledge,  is  in  itself  a  worthy  aim  of  the  greatest 
effort  of  the  greatest  minds." 

How  often  was  it  my  fate,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago,  to  see  the  whole  artillery  of  the  pulpit  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  doctrine  of  evolution  and  its  sup- 
porters !  Any  one  unaccustomed  to  the  amenities 
of  ecclesiastical  controversy  would  have  thought 
we  were  too  wicked  to  be  permitted  to  live.     But 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  129 

let  us  hear  the  Bishop  of  Bedford.  After  a 
perfectly  frank  statement  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  and  some  of  its  obvious  consequences, 
that  learned  prelate  pleads,  with  all  earnestness, 
against 

a  hasty  denunciation  of  what  may  be  proved  to  have  at  least 
some  elements  of  truth  in  it,  a  contemptuous  rejection  of  theories 
which  we  may  some  day  learn  to  accept  as  freely  and  with  as 
little  sense  of  inconsistency  with  God's  word  as  we  now  accept 
the  theory  of  the  earth's  motion  round  the  sun,  or  the  long 
duration  of  the  geological  epochs  (p.  28). 

I  do  not  see  that  the  most  convinced  evolutionist 
could  ask  any  one,  whether  cleric  or  layman,  to  say 
more  than  this ;  in  fact,  I  do  not  think  that  any 
one  has  a  right  to  say  more,  with  respect  to  any 
question  about  which  two  opinions  can  be  held,  than 
that  his  mind  is  perfectly  open  to  the  force  of 
evidence. 

There  is  another  portion  of  the  Bishop  of  Bed- 
ford's sermon  which  I  think  will  be  warmly  appre- 
ciated by  all  honest  and  clear-headed  men.  He 
repudiates  the  views  of  those  who  say  that  theology 
and  science 

occupy  wholly  different  spheres,  and  need  in  no  way  intermeddle 
with  each  other.  They  revolve,  as  it  were,  in  different  planes, 
and  so  never  meet.  Thus  we  may  pursue  scientific  studies  with 
the  utmost  freedom  and,  at  the  same  time,  may  pay  the  most 
reverent  regard  to  theolog3r,  having  no  fears  of  collision,  because 
allowing  no  points  of  contact  (p.  29). 

Surely  every  unsophisticated  mind  will  heartily 


130  AN   EPISCOPAL   TKILOGY  it 

concur  with  the  Bishop's  remark  "upon  this  con- 
venient refuge  for  the  descendants  of  Mr.  Facing- 
both-ways.  "  I  have  never  been  able  to  under- 
stand this  position,  though  I  have  often  seen  it 
assumed."  Nor  can  any  demurrer  be  sustained 
when  the  Bishop  proceeds  to  point  out  that  there 
are,  and  must  be,  various  points  of  contact  between 
theological  and  natural  science,  and  therefore  that 
it  is  foolish  to  ignore  or  deny  the  existence  of  as 
many  dangers  of  collision. 

Finally,  the  Bishop  of  Manchester  freely  admits 
the  force  of  the  objections  which  have  been  raised, 
on  scientific  grounds,  to  prayer,  and  attempts  to 
turn  them  by  arguing  that  the  proper  objects  of 
prayer  are  not  physical  but  spiritual.  He  tells  us 
that  natural  accidents  and  moral  misfortunes  are 
not  to  be  taken  for  moral  judgments  of  God ;  he 
admits  the  propriety  of  the  application  of  scientific 
methods  to  the  investigation  of  the  origin  and 
growth  of  religions ;  and  he  is  as  ready  to  recognise 
the  process  of  evolution  there,  as  in  the  physical 
world.     Mark  the  following  striking  passage  : — 

And  how  utterly  all  the  common  objections  to  Divine  revela- 
tion vanish  away  when  they  are  set  in  the  light  of  this  theory  of 
a  spiritual  progression.  Are  we  reminded  that  there  prevailed, 
in  those  earlier  days,  views  of  the  nature  of  God  and  man,  of 
human  life  and  Divine  Providence,  which  we  now  find  to  be 
untenable  ?  That,  we  answer,  is  precisely  what  the  theory  of 
development  presupposes.  If  early  views  of  religion  and  mor- 
ality had  not  been  imperfect,  where  had  been  the  development  ? 
If  symbolical  visions  and  mythical  creations  had  found  no  place 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   THILOGY  131 

in  the  early  Oriental  expression  of  Divine  truth,  where  had  been 
the  development  ?  The  sufficient  answer  to  ninety-nine  out  of  a 
hundred  of  the  ordinary  objections  to  the  Bible,  as  the  record  of 
a  divine  education  of  our  race,  is  asked  in  that  one  word — 
development.  And  to  what  are  we  indebted  for  that  potent 
word,  which,  as  with  the  wand  of  a  magician,  has  at  the  same 
moment  so  completely  transformed  our  knowledge  and  dispelled 
our  difficulties  ?  To  modern  science,  resolutely  pursuing  its 
search  for  truth  in  spite  of  popular  obloquy  and — alas  !  that  one 
should  have  to  say  it — in  spite  too  often  of  theological  denuncia- 
tion (p.  53). 

Apart  from  its  general  importance,  I  read  this 
remarkable  statement  with  the  more  pleasure, 
since,  however  imperfectly  I  may  have  endeavoured 
to  illustrate  the  evolution  of  theology  in  a  paper 
published  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  last  year,1  it 
seems  to  me  that  in  principle,  at  any  rate,  I  may 
hereafter  claim  high  theological  sanction  for  the 
views  there  set  forth. 

If  theologians  are  henceforward  prepared  to  re- 
cognise the  authority  of  secular  science  in  the  man- 
ner and  to  the  extent  indicated  in  the  Manchester 
trilogy;  if  the  distinguished  prelates  who  offer 
these  terms  are  really  plenipotentiaries,  then,  so 
far  as  I  may  presume  to  speak  on  such  a  matter, 
there  will  be  no  difficulty  about  concluding  a  per- 
petual treaty  of  peace,  and  indeed  of  alliance, 
between  the  high  contracting  powers,  whose 
history  has  hitherto  been  little  more  than  a  record 
of  continual  warfare.  But  if  the  great  Chancellor's 
1  Reprinted  in  VoL  IV.  of  this  collection. 


132  AN    EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

maxim,  "Do  ut  des,"  is  to  form  the  basis  of 
negotiation,  I  am  afraid  that  secular  science  will 
be  ruined ;  for  it  seems  to  me  that  theology,  under 
the  generous  impulse  of  a  sudden  conversion,  has 
given  all  that  she  hath ;  and  indeed,  on  one  point, 
has  surrendered  more  than  can  reasonably  be  asked. 

I  suppose  I  must  be  prepared  to  face  the  reproach 
which  attaches  to  those  who  criticise  a  gift,  if  I 
venture  to  observe  that  I  do  not  think  that  the 
Bishop  of  Manchester  need  have  been  so  much 
alarmed,  as  he  evidently  has  been,  by  the  objections 
which  have  often  been  raised  to  prayer,  on  the 
ground  that  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer  is 
inconsistent  with  a  belief  in  the  constancy  of  the 
order  of  nature. 

The  Bishop  appears  to  admit  that  there  is  an 
antagonism  between  the  "  regular  economy  of 
nature  "  and  the  "  regular  economy  of  prayer " 
(p.  39),  and  that  "  prayers  for  the  interruption  of 
God's  natural  order  "  are  of  "  doubtful  validity  " 
(p.  42).  It  appears  to  me  that  the  Bishop's 
difficulty  simply  adds  another  example  to  those 
which  1  have  several  times  insisted  upon  in  the 
pages  of  this  Review  and  elsewhere,  of  the  mischief 
which  has  been  done,  and  is  being  done,  by  a  mis- 
taken apprehension  of  the  real  meaning  of  "  natural 
order  "  and  "  law  of  nature." 

May  I,  therefore,  be  permitted  to  repeat,  once 
more,  that  the  statements  denoted  by  these  terms 
have  no  greater  value  or  cogency  than  such  as  may 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TEILOGY  133 

attach  to  generalisations  from  experience  of  the 
past,  and  to  expectations  for  the  future  based  upon 
that  experience  ?  Nobody  can  presume  to  say 
what  the  order  of  nature  must  be  ;  all  that  the 
widest  experience  (even  if  it  extended  over  all 
past  time  and  through  all  space)  that  events  had 
happened  in  a  certain  way  could  justify,  would  be  a 
proportionally  strong  expectation  that  events  will 
go  on  so  happening,  and  the  demand  for  a  propor- 
tional strength  of  evidence  in  favour  of  any  asser- 
tion that  they  had  happened  otherwise. 

It  is  this  weighty  consideration,  the  truth  of 
which  every  one  who  is  capable  of  logical  thought 
must  surely  admit,  which  knocks  the  bottom  out  of 
all  a  priori  objections  either  to  ordinary  "  miracles  " 
or  to  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  in  so  far  as  the  latter 
implies  the  miraculous  intervention  of  a  higher 
power.  No  one  is  entitled  to  say  a  priori  that  any 
given  so-called  miraculous  event  is  impossible  ;  and 
no  one  is  entitled  to  say  a  priori  that  prayer  for 
some  change  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature  can- 
not possibly  avail. 

The  supposition  that  there  is  any  inconsistency 
between  the  acceptance  of  the  constancy  of  natural 
order  and  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  is  the 
more  unaccountable  as  it  is  obviously  contradicted 
by  analogies  furnished  by  everyday  experience. 
The  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer  depends  upon 
the  assumption  that  there  is  somebody,  somewhere, 
who  is  strong  enough  to  deal  with  the  earth  and 
its  contents  as  men  deal  with  the  things  and  events 


134  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

which  they  are  strong  enough  to  modify  or  control ; 
and  who  is  capable  of  being  moved  by  appeals 
such  as  men  make  to  one  another.  This  belief 
does  not  even  involve  theism ;  for  our  earth  is  an 
insignificant  particle  of  the  solar  system,  while  the 
solar  system  is  hardly  worth  speaking  of  in  relation 
to  the  All ;  and,  for  anything  that  can  be  proved 
to  the  contrary,  there  may  be  beings  endowed 
with  full  powers  over  our  system,  yet,  practically, 
as  insignificant  as  ourselves  in  relation  to  the 
universe.  If  any  one  pleases,  therefore,  to  give  un- 
restrained liberty  to  his  fancy,  he  may  plead 
analogy  in  favour  of  the  dream  that  there  may  be, 
somewhere,  a  finite  being,  or  beings,  who  can  play 
with  the  solar  system  as  a  child  plays  with  a  toy  ; 
and  that  such  being  may  be  willing  to  do  anything 
which  he  is  properly  supplicated  to  do.  For  we 
are  not  justified  in  saying  that  it  is  impossible  for 
beings  having  the  nature  of  men,  only  vastly  more 
powerful,  to  exist ;  and  if  they  do  exist,  they  may 
act  as  and  when  we  ask  them  to  do  so,  just  as  our 
brother  men  act.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  great 
mass  of  the  human  race  has  believed,  and  still 
believes,  in  such  beings,  under  the  various  names 
of  fairies,  gnomes,  angels,  and  demons.  Certainly 
I  do  not  lack  faith  in  the  constancy  of  natural 
order.  But  I  am  not  less  convinced  that  if  I  were 
to  ask  the  Bishop  of  Manchester  to  do  me  a  kind- 
ness which  lay  within  his  power,  he  would  do  it. 
And  I  am  unable  to  see  that  his  action  on  my 
request   involves   any   violation   of  the  order  of 


IV  AN    EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  135 

nature.  On  the  contrary,  as  I  have  not  the 
honour  to  know  the  Bishop  personally,  my  action 
would  be  based  upon  my  faith  in  that  "  law  of 
nature,"  or  generalisation  from  experience,  which 
tells  me  that,  as  a  rule,  men  who  occupy  the 
Bishop's  position  are  kindly  and  courteous.  How 
is  the  case  altered  if  my  request  is  preferred  to 
some  imaginary  superior  being,  or  to  the  Most 
High  being,  who,  by  the  supposition,  is  able  to 
arrest  disease,  or  make  the  sun  stand  still  in  the 
heavens,  just  as  easily  as  I  can  stop  my  watch,  or 
make  it  indicate  any  hour  that  pleases  me  ? 

I  repeat  that  it  is  not  upon  any  a  'priori  con- 
siderations that  objections,  either  to  the  supposed 
efficacy  of  prayer  in  modifying  the  course  of  events, 
or  to  the  supposed  occurrence  of  miracles,  can  be 
scientifically  based.  The  real  objection,  and,  to 
my  mind,  the  fatal  objection,  to  both  these  sup- 
positions, is  the  inadequacy  of  the  evidence  to 
prove  any  given  case  of  such  occurrences  which 
has  been  adduced.  It  is  a  canon  of  common 
sense,  to  say  nothing  of  science,  that  the  more 
improbable  a  supposed  occurrence,  the  more 
cogent  ought  to  be  the  evidence  in  its  favour.  I 
have  looked  somewhat  carefully  into  the  subject, 
and  I  am  unable  to  find  in  the  records  of  any 
miraculous  event  evidence  which  even  approxi- 
mates to  the  fulfilment  of  this  requirement. 

But,  in  the  case  of  prayer,  the  Bishop  points  out 
a  most  just  and  necessary   distinction  between  its 


136  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

effect  on  the  course  of  nature,  outside  ourselves, 
and  its  effect  within  the  region  ofthesupplicator's 
mind. 

It  is  a  "  law  of  nature,"  verifiable  by  everyday- 
experience,  that  our  already  formed  convictions, 
our  strong  desires,  our  intent  occupation  with 
particular  ideas,  modify  our  mental  operations  to 
a  most  marvellous  extent,  and  produce  enduring 
changes  in  the  direction  and  in  the  intensity  of 
our  intellectual  and  moral  activities.  Men  can 
intoxicate  themselves  with  ideas  as  effectually  as 
with  alcohol  or  with  bang,  and  produce,  by  dint 
of  intense  thinking,  mental  conditions  hardly 
distinguishable  from  monomania.  Demoniac  pos- 
session is  mythical;  but  the  faculty  of  being 
possessed,  more  or  less  completely,  by  an  idea 
is  probably  the  fundamental  condition  of  what 
is  called  genius,  wdiether  it  show  itself  in  the 
saint,  the  artist,  or  the  man  of  science.  One 
calls  it  faith,  another  calls  it  inspiration,  a  third 
calls  it  insight ;  but  the  "  intending  of  the  mind," 
to  borrow  NewTton's  well-known  phrase,  the  con- 
centration of  all  the  rays  of  intellectual  energy 
on  some  one  point,  until  it  glows  and  colours  the 
whole  cast  of  thought  with  its  peculiar  light,  is 
common  to  all. 

I  take  it  that  the  Bishop  of  Manchester  has 
psychological  science  with  him  wdien  he  insists 
upon  the  subjective  efficacy  of  prayer  in  faith,  and 
on  the  seemingly  miraculous  effects  which   such 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  137 

"intending  of  the  mind"  upon  religious  and 
moral  ideals  may  have  upon  character  and 
happiness.  Scientific  faith,  at  present,  takes  it 
no  further  than  the  prayer  which  Ajax  offered; 
but  that  petition  is  continually  granted. 

Whatever  points  of  detail  may  yet  remain  open 
for  discussion,  however,  I  repeat  the  opinion  I 
have  already  expressed,  that  the  Manchester 
sermons  concede  all  that  science,  has  an  in- 
disputable right,  or  any  pressing  need,  to  ask,  and 
that  not  grudgingly  but  generously;  and,  if  the 
three  bishops  of  1887  carry  the  Church  with  them, 
I  think  they  will  have  as  good  title  to  the 
permanent  gratitude  of  posterity  as  the  famous 
seven  who  went  to  the  Tower  in  defence  of  the 
Church  two  hundred  years  ago. 

Will  their  brethren  follow  their  just  and 
prudent  guidance  ?  I  have  no  such  acquaintance 
with  the  currents  of  ecclesiastical  opinion  as  would 
justify  me  in  even  hazarding  a  guess  on  such 
a  difficult  topic.  But  some  recent  omens  are 
hardly  favourable.  There  seems  to  be  an  im- 
pression abroad — I  do  not  desire  to  give  any 
countenance  to  it — that  I  am  fond  of  reading 
sermons.  From  time  to  time,  unknown  corre- 
spondents— some  apparently  animated  by  the 
charitable  desire  to  promote  my  conversion,  and 
others  unmistakably  anxious  to  spur  me  to  the 
expression  of  wrathful  antagonism — favour  me  with 
reports  or  copies  of  such  productions. 


138  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

I  found  one  of  the  latter  category  among  the 
accumulated  arrears  to  which  I  have  already 
referred. 

It  is  a  full,  and  apparently  accurate,  report  of  a 
discourse  by  a  person  of  no  less  ecclesiastical  rank 
than  the  three  authors  of  the  sermons  I  have 
hitherto  been  considering;  but  who  he  is,  and 
where  or  when  the  sermon  was  preached,  are 
secrets  which  wild  horses  shall  not  tear  from 
me,  lest  I  fall  again  under  high  censure  for 
attacking  a  clergyman.  Only  if  the  editor  of  this 
Review  thinks  it  his  duty  to  have  independent 
evidence  that  the  sermon  has  a  real  existence,  will 
I,  in  the  strictest  confidence,  communicate  it  to 
him. 

The  preacher,  in  this  case,  is  of  a  very  different 
mind  from  the  three  bishops — and  this  mind  is 
different  in  quality,  different  in  spirit,  and  different 
in  contents.  He  discourses  on  the  a  'priori 
objections  to  miracles,  apparently  without  being 
aware,  in  spite  of  all  the  discussions  of  the  last 
seven  or  eight  years,  that  he  is  doing  battle  with 
a  shadow. 

I  trust  I  do  not  misrepresent  the  Bishop  of 
Manchester  in  saying  that  the  essence  of  his 
remarkable  discourse  is  the  insistence  upon  the 
"  supreme  importance  of  the  purely  spiritual  in 
our  faith,"  and  of  the  relative,  if  not  absolute, 
insignificance  of  aught  else.  He  obviously  per- 
ceives the  bearing  of  his  arguments  against  the 


IV  AN    EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  139 

alterability  of  the  course  of  outward  nature  by 
prayer,  on  the  question  of  miracles  in  general; 
for  he  is  careful  to  say  that  "  the  possibility  of 
miracles,  of  a  rare  and  unusual  transcendence  of 
the  world  order  is  not  here  in  question  "  (p.  38). 
It  may  be  permitted  me  to  suppose,  however,  that, 
if  miracles  were  in  question,  the  speaker  who 
warns  us  "  that  we  must  look  for  the  heart  of  the 
absolute  religion  in  that  part  of  it  which  prescribes 
our  moral  and  religious  relations  "  (p.  46)  would 
not  be  disposed  to  advise  those  who  had  found  the 
heart  of  Christianity  to  take  much  thought  about 
its  miraculous  integument. 

My  anonymous  sermon  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  such  notions  as  these,  and  its  preacher  is  not 
too  polite,  to  say  nothing  of  charitable,  towards 
those  who  entertain  them. 

Scientific  men,  therefore,  are  perfectly  right  in  asserting  that 
Christianity  rests  on  miracles.  If  miracles  never  happened, 
Christianity,  in  any  sense  which  is  not  a  mockery,  which  does 
not  make  the  term  of  none  effect,  has  no  reality.  I  dwell  on 
this  because  there  is  now  an  effort  making  to  get  up  a  non-mir- 
aculous, invertebrate  Christianity,  which  may  escape  the  ban 
of  science.  And  I  would  warn  you  very  distinctly  against  this 
new  contrivance.  Christianity  is  essentially  miraculous,  and 
falls  to  the  ground  if  miracles  be  impossible. 

Well,  warning  for  warning,  I  venture  to  warn 
this  preacher  and  those  who,  with  him,  persist  in 
identifying  Christianity  with  the  miraculous,  that 
such  forms  of  Christianity  are  not  only  doomed  to 
fall  to  the   ground;    but   that,   within   the   last 


140  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  IV 

half  century,  they  have  been  driving  that  way  with 
continually  accelerated  velocity. 

The  so-called  religious  world  is  given  to  a  strange 
delusion.  It  fondly  imagines  that  it  possesses  the 
monopoly  of  serious  and  constant  reflection  upon 
the  terrible  problems  of  existence  ;  and  that  those 
who  cannot  accept  its  shibboleths  are  either  mere 
Gallios,  caring  for  none  of  these  things,  or 
libertines  desiring  to  escape  from  the  restraints  of 
morality.  It  does  not  appear  to  have  entered  the 
imaginations  of  these  people  that,  outside  their 
pale  and  firmly  resolved  never  to  enter  it,  there 
are  thousands  of  men,  certainly  not  their  inferiors 
in  character,  capacity,  or  knowledge  of  the 
questions  at  issue,  who  estimate  those  purely 
spiritual  elements  of  the  Christian  faith  of  which 
the  Bishop  of  Manchester  speaks  as  highly  as  the 
Bishop  does ;  but  who  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  Christian  Churches,  because  in  their  appre- 
hension and  for  them,  the  profession  of  belief  in 
the  miraculous,  on  the  evidence  offered,  would  be 
simply  immoral. 

So  far  as  my  experience  goes,  men  of  science  are 
neither  better  nor  worse  than  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Occupation  with  the  endlessly  great  parts 
of  the  universe  does  not  necessarily  involve 
greatness  of  character,  nor  does  microscopic  study 
of  the  infinitely  little  always  produce  humility. 
We  have  our  full  share  of  original  sin;  need, 
greed,  and  vainglory  beset  us  as  they  do  other 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  141 

mortals ;  and  our  progress  is,  for  the  most  past, 
like  that  of  a  tacking  ship,  the  resultant  of  opposite 
divergencies  from  the  straight  path.  But,  for  all 
that,  there  is  one  moral  benefit  which  the  pursuit 
of  science  unquestionably  bestows.  It  keeps  the 
estimate  of  the  value  of  evidence  up  to  the  proper 
mark ;  and  we  are  constantly  receiving  lessons, 
and  sometimes  very  sharp  ones,  on  the  nature  of 
proof.  Men  of  science  will  always  act  up  to  their 
standard  of  veracity,  when  mankind  in  general 
leave  off  sinning ;  but  that  standard  appears  to  me 
to  be  higher  among  them  than  in  any  other  class 
of  the  community. 

I  do  not  know  any  body  of  scientific  men  who 
could  be  got  to  listen  without  the  strongest  ex- 
pressions of  disgusted  repudiation  to  the  exposition 
of  a  pretended  scientific  discovery,  which  had  no 
better  evidence  to  show  for  itself  than  the  story 
of  the  devils  entering  a  herd  of  swine,  or  of  the 
fig-tree  that  was  blasted  for  bearing  no  figs  when 
"  it  was  not  the  season  of  figs."  Whether  such 
events  are  possible  or  impossible,  no  man  can  say ; 
but  scientific  ethics  can  and  does  declare  that  the 
profession  of  belief  in  them,  on  the  evidence  of 
documents  of  unknown  date  and  of  unknown 
authorship,  is  immoral.  Theological  apologists 
who  insist  that  morality  will  vanish  if  their 
dogmas  are  exploded,  would  do  well  to  consider 
the  fact  that,  in  the  matter  of  intellectual  veracity, 
science    is    already    a    long   way    ahead   c-f  the 


142  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

Churches ;  and  that,  in  this  particular,  it  is 
exerting  an  educational  influence  on  mankind  of 
which  the  Churches  have  shown  themselves 
utterly  incapable. 

Undoubtedly  that  varying  compound  of  some 
of  the  best  and  some  of  the  worst  elements  of 
Paganism  and  Judaism,  moulded  in  practice  by 
the  innate  character  of  certain  people  of  the 
Western  world,  which,  since  the  second  century, 
has  assumed  to  itself  the  title  of  orthodox 
Christianity,  "  rests  on  miracles  "  and  falls  to  the 
ground,  not  "  if  miracles  be  impossible,"  but  if 
those  to  which  it  is  committed  prove  themselves 
unable  to  fulfil  the  conditions  of  honest  belief. 
That  this  Christianity  is  doomed  to  fall  is,  to  my 
mind,  beyond  a  doubt ;  but  its  fall  will  be  neither 
sudden  nor  speedy.  The  Church,  with  all  the  aid 
lent  it  by  the  secular  arm,  took  many  centuries  to 
extirpate  the  open  practice  of  pagan  idolatry 
within  its  own  fold ;  and  those  who  have  travelled 
in  southern  Europe  will  be  aware  that  it  has  not 
extirpated  the  essence  of  such  idolatry  even  yet. 
Mutato  nomine,  it  is  probable  that  there  is  as  much 
sheer  fetichism  among  the  Roman  populace  now 
as  there  was  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  ;  and  if 
Marcus  Antoninus  could  descend  from  his  horse  and 
ascend  the  steps  of  the  Ara  Cceli  church  about 
Twelfth  Da^\  the  only  thing  that  need  strike  him 
would  be  the  extremely  contemptible  character  of 
the  modern  idols  as  works  of  art. 


IV  AN    EPISCOPAL   TPJLOGY  143 

Science  will  certainly  neither  ask  for,  nor 
receive,  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm.  It  will  trust 
to  the  much  better  and  more  powerful  help  of  that 
education  in  scientific  truth  and  in  the  morals  of 
assent,  which  is  rendered  as  indispensable,  as  it  is 
inevitable,  by  the  permeation  of  practical  life  with 
the  products  and  ideas  of  science.  But  no  one 
who  considers  the  present  state  of  even  the  most 
developed  countries  can  doubt  that  the  scientific 
li^ht  that  has  come  into  the  world  will  have  to 
shine  in  the  midst  of  darkness  for  a  long  time. 
The  urban  populations,  driven  into  contact  with 
science  by  trade  and  manufacture,  will  more  and 
more  receive  it,  while  the  pagani  will  lag  behind. 
Let  us  hope  that  no  Julian  may  arise  among  them 
to  head  a  forlorn  hope  against  the  inevitable, 
Whatever  happens,  science  may  bide  her  time  in 
patience  and  in  confidence. 

But  to  return  to  my  "Anonymous."  I  am 
afraid  that  if  he  represents  any  great  party  in  the 
Church,  the  spirit  of  justice  and  reasonableness 
which  animates  the  three  bishops  has  as  slender  a 
chance  of  being  imitated,  on  a  large  scale,  as  their 
common  sense  and  their  courtesy.  For,  not  con- 
tented with  misrepresenting  science  on  its  specu- 
lative side,  "  Anonymous  "  attacks  its  morality. 

For  two  whole  years,  investigations  and  conclusions  which 
would  upset  the  theories  of  Darwin  on  the  formation  of  coral 
islands  were  actually  suppressed,  and  that  by  the  advice  even  of 
those  who  accepted  them,  for  fear  of  upsetting  the  faith  and  dis- 

125 


144  AN   EPISCOPAL   TPJLOGY  iv 

turbing  the  judgment  formed  by  the  multitude  on  the  scientific 
character — the  infallibility — of  the  great  master  ! 

So  far  as  I  know  anything  about  the  matters 
which  are  here  referred  to,  the  part  of  this  passage 
which  I  have  italicised  is  absolutely  untrue.  I 
believe  that  I  am  intimately  acquainted  with  all 
Mr.  Darwin's  immediate  scientific  friends :  and  I 
say  that  no  one  of  them,  nor  any  other  man  of 
science  known  to  me,  ever  could,  or  would,  have 
given  such  advice  to  any  one — if  for  no  other 
reason  than  that,  with  the  example  of  the  most 
candid  and  patient  listener  to  objections  that  ever 
lived  fresh  in  their  memories,  they  could  not  so 
grossly  have  at  once  violated  their  highest  duty 
and  dishonoured  their  friend. 

The  charge  thus  brought  by  "Anonymous" 
affects  the  honour  and  the  probity  of  men  of 
science ;  if  it  is  true,  we  have  forfeited  all  claim 
to  the  confidence  of  the  general  public.  In 
my  belief  it  is  utterly  false,  and  its  real  effect  will 
be  to  discredit  those  who  are  responsible  for  it. 
As  is  the  way  with  slanders,  it  has  grown  by 
repetition.  "  Anonymous  "  is  responsible  for  the 
peculiarly  offensive  form  which  it  has  taken  in  his 
hands ;  but  he  is  not  responsible  for  originating 
it.  He  has  evidently  been  inspired  by  an  article 
entitled  "  A  Great  Lesson,"  published  in  the  Sep- 
tember number  of  this  Review.  Truly  it  is  "  a 
great  lesson,"  but  not  quite  in  the  sense  intended 
by  the  giver  thereo£ 


IV  AN  EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  145 

In  the  course  of  his  doubtless  well-meant  ad- 
monitions, the  Duke  of  Argyll  commits  himself 
to  a  greater  number  of  statements  which  are  de- 
monstrably incorrect  and  which  any  one  who 
ventured  to  write  upon  the  subject  ought  to  have 
known  to  be  incorrect,  than  I  have  ever  seen 
gathered  together  in  so  small  a  space. 

I  submit  a  gathering  from  the  rich  store  for  the 
appreciation  of  the  public. 

First  :— 

Mr.  Murray's  new  explanation  of  the  structure  of  coral-reefs 
and  islands  was  communicated  to  the  Royal  Society  of  Edinburgh 
in  1880,  and  supported  with  such  a  weight  of  facts  and  such  a 
close  texture  of  reasoning,  that  no  serious  reply  has  ever  been 
attempted  (p.  305). 

"  No  serious  reply  has  ever  been  attempted  "  !  I 
suppose  that  the  Duke  of  Argyll  may  have  heard 
of  Professor  Dana,  whose  years  of  labour  devoted 
to  corals  and  coral-reefs  when  he  was  naturalist 
of  the  American  expedition  under  Commodore 
Wilkes,  more  than  forty  years  ago,  have  ever  since 
caused  him  to  be  recognised  as  an  authority  of  the 
first  rank  on  such  subjects.  Now  does  his  Grace 
know,  or  does  he  not  know,  that,  in  the  year  1885, 
Professor  Dana  published  an  elaborate  paper  "  On 
the  Origin  of  Coral-Reefs  and  Islands,"  in  which, 
after  referring  to  a  Presidential  Address  by  the 
Director  of  the  Geological  Survey  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland   delivered  in  1883,  in  which   special 


146  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

attention  is  directed  to  Mr.  Murray's  views  Pro- 
fessor Dana  says  : — 

The  existing  state  of  doubt  on  the  question  has  led  the  writer 
to  reconsider  the  earlier  and  later  facts,  and  in  the  following 
pages  he  gives  his  results. 

Professor  Dana  then  devotes  many  pages  of  his 
very  "  serious  reply "  to  a  most  admirable  and 
weighty  criticism  of  the  objections  which  have  at 
various  times  been  raised  to  Mr.  Darwin's  doctrine, 
by  Professor  Semper,  by  Dr.  Rein,  and  finally  by 
Mr.  Murray,  and  he  states  his  final  judgment  as 
follows  : — 

With  the  theory  of  abrasion  and  solution  incompetent,  ail  the 
hypotheses  of  objectors  to  Darwin's  theory  are  alike  weak  ;  for 
all  have  made  these  processes  their  chief  reliance,  whether  ap- 
pealing to  a  calcareous,  or  a  volcanic,  or  a  mountain-peak  base- 
ment for  the  structure.  The  subsidence  which  the  Darwinian 
theory  requires  has  not  been  opposed  by  the  mention  of  any  fact 
at  variance  with  it,  nor  by  setting  aside  Darwin's  arguments  in 
its  favour  ;  and  it  has  found  new  support  in  the  facts  from  the 
"Challenger's"  soundings  off  Tahiti,  that  had  been  put  in  array 
against  it,  and  strong  corroboration  in  the  facts  from  the  West 
Indies. 

Darwin's  theory,  therefore,  remains  as  the  theory  that  accounts 
for  the  origin  of  reefs  and  islands.1 

Be  it  understood  that  I  express  no  opinion  on 
the  controverted  points.  I  doubt  if  there  are  ten 
living  men  who,  having  a  practical  knowledge  of 
what  a  coral-reef  is,  have  endeavoured  to  master 
the  very  difficult  biological  and  geological  prob- 
lems involved  in  their  study.     I  happen  to  have 

1  American  Journal  of  Science,  1885,  p.  190. 


IV  AN    EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  147 

spent  the  best  part  of  three  years  among  coral- 
reefs  and  to  have  made  that  attempt ;  and,  when 
Mr.  Murray's  work  appeared,  I  said  to  myself  that 
until  I  had  two  or  three  months  to  give  to  the 
renewed  study  of  the  subject  in  all  its  bearings,  I 
must  be  content  to  remain  in  a  condition  of  sus- 
pended judgment.  In  the  meanwhile,  the  man 
who  would  be  voted  by  common  acclamation  as  the 
most  competent  person  now  living  to  act  as  umpire, 
has  delivered  the  verdict  I  have  quoted ;  and,  to 
go  no  further,  has  fully  justified  the  hesitation  I 
and  others  may  have  felt  about  expressing  an 
opinion.  Under  these  circumstances,  it  seems  to 
me  to  require  a  good  deal  of  courage  to  say  "  no 
serious  reply  has  ever  been  attempted " ;  and  to 
chide  the  men  of  science,  in  lofty  tones,  for  their 
"reluctance  to  admit  an  error"  which  is  not 
admitted  ;  and  for  their  "  slow  and  sulky  acqui- 
escence" in  a  conclusion  which  they  have  the 
gravest  warranty  for  suspecting. 
Second : — 

Darwin  himself  had  lived  to  hear  of  the  new  solution,  and, 
with  that  splendid  candour  wThich  was  eminent  in  him,  his  mind, 
though  now  grown  old  in  his  own  early  convictions,  was  at  least 
ready  to  entertain  it,  and  to  confess  that  serious  doubts  had  been 
awakened  as  to  the  truth  of  his  famous  theory  (p.  305). 

I  wish  that  Darwin's  splendid  candour  could 
be  conveyed  by  some  description  of  spiritual 
"  microbe  "  to  those  who  write  about  him.  I  am 
not   aware    that    Mr.    Darwin    ever    entertained 


148  AN   EriSCOPAL    TRILOGY 


Iv 


"  serious  doubts  as  to  the  truth  of  his  famous 
theory";  and  there  is  tolerably  good  evidence  to 
the  contrary.  The  second  edition  of  his  work, 
published  in  1876,  proves  that  he  entertained  no 
such  doubts  then;  a  letter  to  Professor  Semper, 
whose  objections,  in  some  respects,  forestalled 
those  of  Mr.  Murray,  dated  October  2,  1879,  ex- 
p  esses  his  continued  adherence  to  the  opinion 
"that  the  atolls  and  barrier  reefs  in  the  middle 
of  the  Pacific  and  Indian  Oceans  indicate  sub- 
sidence"; and  the  letter  of  my  friend  Professor 
Judd,  printed  at  the  end  of  this  article  (which 
I  had  perhaps  better  say  Professor  Judd  had 
not  seen)  will  prove  that  this  opinion  remained 
unaltered  to  the  end  of  his  life. 
Third :— 

.  .  .  Darwin's  theory  is  a  dream.  It  is  not  only  unsound, 
but  it  is  in  many  respects  the  reverse  of  truth.  With  all  his  con- 
scientiousness, with  all  his  caution,  with  all  his  powers  of  ob- 
servation, Darwin  in  this  matter  fell  into  errors  as  profound  as 
the  abysses  of  the  Pacific  (p.  301). 

Really  ?  It  seems  to  me  that,  under  the  circum- 
stances, it  is  pretty  clear  that  these  lines  exhibit  a 
lack  of  the  qualities  justly  ascribed  to  Mr.  Darwin, 
which  plunges  their  author  into  a  much  deeper 
abyss,  and  one  from  which  there  is  no  hope  of 
emergence. 
Fourth : — 

All  the  acclamations  with  which  it  was  received  were  as  the 
shouts  of  an  ignorant  mob  (p.  301). 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TPJLOGY  149 

But  surely  it  should  be  added  that  the  Coryphaeus 

of  this  ignorant  mob,  the  fugleman  of  the  shouts, 

was  one  of  the  most  accomplished  naturalists  and 

geologists  now  living — the  American  Dana — who, 

after  years  of  independent  study  extending  over 

numerous  reefs    in  the    Pacific,  gave  his  hearty 

assent  to  Darwin's  views,  and  after  all  that  had 

been   said,  deliberately  reaffirmed  that  assent  in 

the  year  1885. 

Fifth :— 

The  overthrow  of  Darwin's  speculation  is  only  "beginning  to 
be  known.  It  has  been  whispered  for  some  time.  The  cherished 
dogma  has  been  dropping  very  slowly  out  of  sight  (p.  301). 

Darwin's  speculation  may  be  right  or  wrong,  but  I 
submit  that  that  which  has  not  happened  cannot 
even  begin  to  be  known,  except  by  those  who  have 
miraculous  gifts  to  which  we  poor  scientific  people 
do  not  aspire.  The  overthrow  of  Darwin's  views 
may  have  been  whispered  by  those  who  hoped  for 
it;  and  they  were  perhaps  wise  in  not  raising 
their  voices  above  a  whisper.  Incorrect  state- 
ments, if  made  too  loudly,  are  apt  to  bring  about 
unpleasant  consequences. 

Sixth  :— 

Mr.  Murray's  views,  published  in  1880,  are 
said  to  have  met  with  "  slow  and  sulky  ac- 
quiescence "  (p.  305).  I  have  proved  that  they 
cannot  be  said  to  have  met  with  general  acqui- 
escence of  any  sort,  whether  quick  and  cheerful, 
or  slow  and  sulky  ;  and  if  this  assertion  is  meant 


150  AN    EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY 


IV 


to  convey  the  impression  that  Mr.  Murray's  views 
have  been  ignored,  that  there  has  been  a  conspiracy 
of  silence  against  them,  it  is  utterly  contrary  to 
notorious  fact. 

Professor  Geikie's  well-known  "  Textbook  of 
Geology  "  was  published  in  1882,  and  at  pages  457- 
459  of  that  work  there  is  a  careful  exposition  of 
Mr.  Murray's  views.  Moreover  Professor  Geikie 
has  specially  advocated  them  on  other  occasions,1 
notably  in  a  long  article  on  "  The  Origin  of  Coral - 
Reefs,"  published  in  two  numbers  of  "  Nature  "  for 
1883,  and  in  a  Presidential  Address  delivered  in  the 
same  year.  If,  in  so  short  a  time  after  the  publi- 
cation of  his  views,  Mr.  Murray  could  boast  of  a 
convert,  so  distinguished  and  influential  as  the 
Director  of  the  Geological  Survey,  it  seems  to  me 
that  this  wonderful  conspiration  de  silence  (which 
has  about  as  much  real  existence  as  the  Duke  of 
Argyll's  other  bogie, "  The  Reign  of  Terror  ")  must 
have  ipso  facto  collapsed.  I  wish  that,  when  I  was 
a  young  man,  my  endeavours  to  upset  some  pre- 
valent errors  had  met  with  as  speedy  and  effectual 
backing. 

Seventh : — 

.  .  .  Mr.  John  Murray  was  strongly  advised  against  the  pub- 
lication of  his  views  in  derogation  of  Darwin's  long- accepted 

1  Professor  Geikie,  however,  though  a  strong,  is  a  fair  and 
candid  advocate.  He  says  of  Darwin's  theory,  "That  it  may 
be  possibly  true,  in  some  instances,  may  be  readily  granted." 
For  Professor  Geikie,  then,  it  is  not  yet  overthrown — still  less  a 
dream. 


IV  AN  EPISCOPAL  TRILOGY         151 

theory  of  the  coral  islands,  and  was  actually  induced  to  delay  it 
for  two  years.  Yet  the  late  Sir  Wyville  Thomson,  who  was  at 
the  head  of  the  naturalists  of  the  i£  Challenger  "  expedition,  was 
himself  convinced  by  Mr.  Murray's  reasoning  (p.  307). 

Clearly,  then,  it  could  not  be  Mr.  Murray's  official 
chief  who  gave  him  this  advice.  Who  was  it  ?  And 
what  was  the  exact  nature  of  the  advice  given  ? 
Until  we  have  some  precise  information  on  this 
head,  I  shall  take  leave  to  doubt  whether  this 
statement  is  more  accurate  than  those  which  I 
have  previously  cited. 

Whether  such  advice  was  wise  or  foolish,  just  or 
immoral,  depends  entirely  on  the  motive  of  the 
person  who  gave  it.  If  he  meant  to  suggest  to 
Mr.  Murray  that  it  might  be  wise  for  a  young  and 
comparatively  unknown  man  to  walk  warily,  when 
he  proposed  to  attack  a  generalisation  based  on 
many  years'  labour  of  one  undoubtedly  com- 
petent person,  and  fortified  by  the  independent 
results  of  the  many  years'  labour  of  another  un- 
doubtedly competent  person ;  and  even,  if  neces- 
sary, to  take  two  whole  years  in  fortifying  his 
position,  I  think  that  such  advice  would  have  been 
sagacious  and  kind.  I  suppose  that  there  are  few 
working  men  of  science  who  have  not  kept  then- 
ideas  to  themselves,  while  gathering  and  sifting 
evidence,  for  a  much  longer  period  than  two 
years. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Murray  was  advised 
to  delay  the  publication  of  his  criticisms,  simply  to 


152  AN   EPISCOPAL  TRILOGY  IT 

save  Mr.  Darwin's  credit  and  to  preserve  some 
reputation  for  infallibility,  which  no  one  ever 
heard  of,  then  I  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring 
that  his  adviser  wTas  profoundly  dishonest,  as  well 
as  extremely  foolish  ;  and  that,  if  he  is  a  man  of 
science,  he  has  disgraced  his  calling. 

But,  after  all,  this  supposed  scientific  Achitophel 
has  not  yet  made  good  the  primary  fact  of  his  ex- 
istence. Until  the  needful  proof  is  forthcoming,  I 
think  I  am  justified  in  suspending  my  judgment  as 
to  whether  he  is  much  more  than  an  anti-scientific 
myth.  I  leave  it  to  the  Duke  of  Argyll  to  judge 
of  the  extent  of  the  obligation  under  which,  for 
his  own  sake,  he  may  lie  to  produce  the  evidence 
on  which  his  aspersions  of  the  honour  of  scientific 
men  are  based.  I  cannot  pretend  that  we  are 
seriously  disturbed  by  charges  which  every  one 
who  is  acquainted  with  the  truth  of  the  matter 
knows  to  be  ridiculous ;  but  mud  has  a  habit  of 
staining  if  it  lies  too  long,  and  it  is  as  well  to  have 
it' brushed  off  as  soon  as  may  be. 

So  much  for  the  "  Great  Lesson."  It  is  followed 
by  a  "  Little  Lesson,"  apparently  directed  against 
my  infallibility — a  doctrine  about  which  I  should 
be  inclined  to  paraphrase  Wilkes's  remark  to 
George  the  Third,  when  he  declared  that  he,  at 
any  rate,  was  not  a  Wilkite.  But  I  really  should 
be  glad  to  think  that  there  are  people  who  need 
the  warning,  because  then  it  will  be  obvious  that 
this  raking  up  of  an  old  story  cannot  have  been 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  153 

suggested  by  a  mere  fanatical  desire  to  damage 
men  of  science.  I  can  but  rejoice,  then,  that 
these  misguided  enthusiasts,  whose  faith  in  me 
has  so  far  exceeded  the  bounds  of  reason,  should 
be  set  right.  But  that  "  want  of  finish  "  in  the 
matter  of  accuracy  which  so  terribly  mars  the 
effect  of  the  "  Great  Lesson,"  is  no  less  conspicuous 
in  the  case  of  the  "  Little  Lesson,"  and,  instead  of 
setting  my  too  fervent  disciples  right,  it  will  set 
them  wrong. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll,  in  telling  the  story  of 
Bathybius,  says  that  my  mind  was  "  caught  by  this 
new  and  grand  generalisation  of  the  physical  basis 
of  life."  I  never  have  been  guilty  of  a  reclamation 
about  anything  to  my  credit,  and  I  do  not  mean 
to  be ;  but  if  there  is  any  blame  going,  I  do  not 
choose  to  be  relegated  to  a  subordinate  place 
when  I  have  a  claim  to  the  first.  The  responsi- 
bility for  the  first  description  and  the  naming  of 
Bathybius  is  mine  and  mine  only.  The  paper  on 
"  Some  Organisms  living  at  great  Depths  in  the 
Atlantic  Ocean,"  in  which  I  drew  attention  to  this 
substance,  is  to  be  found  by  the  curious  in  the 
eighth  volume  of  the  "  Quarterly  Journal  of  Micro- 
scopical Science,"  and  was  published  in  the  year 
1868.  Whatever  errors  are  contained  in  that 
paper  are  my  own  peculiar  property ;  but  neither 
at  the  meeting  of  the  British  Association  in  1868, 
nor  anywhere  else,  have  I  gone  beyond  what  is 
there  stated ;  except  in  so  far  that,  at  a  long-sub- 


154  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

sequent  meeting  of  the  Association,  being  impor- 
tuned about  the  subject,  I  ventured  to  express 
somewhat  emphatically,  the  wish  that  the  thing 
was  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

What  is  meant  by  my  being  caught  by  a 
generalisation  about  the  physical  basis  of  life  I 
do  not  know ;  still  less  can  I  understand  the  as- 
sertion that  Bathyhius  was  accepted  because  of  its 
supposed  harmony  with  Darwin's  speculations. 
That  which  interested  me  in  the  matter  was  the 
apparent  analogy  of  Bathyhius  with  other  well- 
known  forms  of  lower  life,  such  as  the  plasmodia 
of  the  Myxomycetes  and  the  Rbizopods.  Specu- 
lative hopes  or  fears  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
matter ;  and  if  Bathyhius  were  brought  up  alive 
from  the  bottom  of  the  Atlantic  to-morrow,  the 
fact  would  not  have  the  slightest  bearing,  that  I 
can  discern,  upon  Mr.  Darwin's  speculations,  or 
upon  any  of  the  disputed  problems  of  biology.  It 
would  merely  be  one  elementary  organism  the 
more  added  to  the  thousands  already  known. 

Up  to  this  moment  I  was  not  aware  of  the 
universal  favour  with  which  Bathyhius  was  re- 
ceived.1 Those  simulators  of  an  "  ignorant  mob  " 
who,  according  to  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  welcomed 


1  I  find,  moreover,  that  I  specially  warned  my  readers  against 
hasty  judgment.  After  stating  the  facts  of  observation,  I  add, 
"I  have,  hitherto,  said  nothing  about  their  meaning,  as,  in  an 
inquiry  so  difficult  and  fraught  with  interest  as  this,  it  seems  to 
me  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  important  to  keep  the  question* 
of  fact  and  the  questions  of  interpretation  well  apart"  (p.  210). 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  155 

Darwin's  theory  of  coral-reefs,  made  no  demon- 
stration in  my  favour,  unless  his  Grace  includes 
Sir  Wyville  Thomson,  Dr.  Carpenter,  Dr.  Bessels, 
and  Professor  Haeckel  under  that  head.     On  the 
contrary,  a  sagacious  friend  of  mine,  than  whom 
there  was  no  more  competent  judge,  the  late  Mr. 
George  Busk,  was  not  to  be  converted ;  while,  long 
before   the    "  Challenger  "  work,  Ehreuberg  wrote 
to  me  very  sceptically ;  and  I  fully  expected  that 
that  eminent  man  would  favour  me  with  pretty 
sharp  criticism.     Unfortunately,  he  died  shortly 
afterwards,  and  nothing  from  him,  that  I  know  of, 
appeared.     When  Sir  Wyville  Thomson  wrote  to 
me  a  brief  account  of  the  results  obtained  on  board 
the"  Challenger"  I  sent  this  statement  to  "Nature," 
in  which  journal  it  appeared  the  following  week, 
without  any  further  note  or  comment  than  was 
needful   to   explain   the  circumstances.     In  thus 
allowing  judgment  to  go  by  default,  I  am  afraid  I 
shovved  a  reckless  and  ungracious  disregard  for  the 
feelings  of  the  believers  in  my  infallibility.     No 
doubt  I  ought  to  have  hedged  and  fenced  and 
attenuated  the  effect  of  Sir  Wyville   Thomson's 
brief  note  in  every  possible  way.     Or  perhaps  I 
ought  to  have  suppressed  the  note  altogether,  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  a  mere  ex  parte  statement. 
My    excuse    is    that,    notwithstanding    a    large 
and  abiding  faith  in  human  folly,  I  did  not  know 
then,  any  more  than    I   know    now,   that   there 
was  anybody  foolish  enough  to  be  unaware  that 


156  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

the  only  people  scientific  or  other,  who  never 
make  mistakes  are  those  who  do  nothing ;  or  that 
anybody,  for  whose  opinion  I  cared,  would  not  rather 
see  me  commit  ten  blunders  than  try  to  hide  one. 

Pending  the  production  of  further  evidence,  I 
hold  that  the  existence  of  people  who  believe  in 
the  infallibility  of  men  of  science  is  as  purely 
mythical  as  that  of  the  evil  counsellor  who  advised 
the  withholding  of  the  truth  lest  it  should  conflict 
with  that  belief. 

I  venture  to   think,  then,   that   the   Duke   of 
Argyll  might  have  spared  his  "  Little  Lesson  "  as 
well  as  his  "  Great  Lesson"  with  advantage.     The 
paternal  authority  who  whips  the  child  for  sins 
he  has  not  committed  does   not   strengthen  his 
moral  influence — rather  excites  contempt  and  re- 
pugnance.    And  if,  as  would  seem  from  this  and 
former    monitory    allocutions    which    have    been 
addressed  to  us,  the  Duke  aspires  to  the  position 
of  censor,  or  spiritual  director,  in  relation  to  the 
men  who  are  doing  the  work  of  physical  science, 
he   really  must  get  up  his  facts  better.     There 
will  be  an  end  to  all  chance  of  our  kissing  the  rod 
if  his  Grace  goes  wrong  a  third  time.     He  must 
".aot  say  again  that    "  no  serious  reply   has  been 
attempted "  to  a  view  which  was  discussed   and 
repudiated,  two  years  before,  by  one  of  the  highest 
extant  authorities  on  the  subject ;  he  must  not  say 
that  Darwin  accepted  that  which  it  can  be  proved 
he  did  not  accept  ;  he  must  not  say  that  a  doctrine 


IV 


AN    EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  157 


has  dropped  into  the  abyss  when  it  is  quite 
obviously  alive  and  kicking  at  the  surface;  he 
must  not  assimilate  a  man  like  Professor  Dana  to 
the  components  of  an  "  ignorant  mob  "  ;  he  must 
not  say  that  things  are  beginning  to  be  known 
which  are  not  known  at  all ;  he  must  not  say  that 
"  slow  and  sulky  acquiescence "  has  been  given 
to  that  which  cannot  yet  boast  of  general  acquies- 
cence of  any  kind ;  he  must  not  suggest  that  a 
view  which  has  been  publicly  advocated  by  the 
Director  of  the  Geological  Survey  and  no  less 
publicly  discussed  by  many  other  authoritative 
writers  has  been  intentionally  and  systematically 
ignored;  he  must  not  ascribe  ill  motives  for  a 
course  of  action  which  is  the  only  proper  one ; 
and  finally,  if  any  one  but  myself  were  interested, 
I  should  say  that  he  had  better  not  waste  his  time 
in  raking  up  the  errors  of  those  whose  lives  have 
been  occupied,  not  in  talking  about  science,  but 
in  toiling,  sometimes  with  success  and  sometimes 
with  failure,  to  get  some  real  work  done. 

The  most  considerable  difference  I  note  amonof 
men  is  not  in  their  readiness  to  fall  into  error,  but 
in  their  readiness  to  acknowledge  these  inevitable 
lapses.  The  Duke  of  Argyll  has  now  a  splendid 
opportunity  for  proving  to  the  world  in  which  of 
these  categories  it  is  hereafter  to  rank  him. 


Dear    Professor    Huxley, — A    short   time 
before  Mr.  Darwin's  death,  I   had   a  conversation 


158  AN   EPISCOPAL   TRILOGY  iv 

with  him  concerning  the  observations  which  had 
been  made  by  Mr.  Murray  upon  coral-reefs,  and 
the  speculations  which  had  been  founded  upon 
those  observations.  I  found  that  Mr.  Darwin  had 
very  carefully  considered  the  whole  subject,  and 
that  while,  on  the  one  hand,  he  did  not  regard  the 
actual  facts  recorded  by  Mr.  Murray  as  absolutely 
inconsistent  with  his  own  theory  of  subsidence, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  did  not  believe  that  they 
necessitated  or  supported  the  hypothesis  advanced 
by  Mr.  Murray.  Mr.  Darwin's  attitude,  as  I  under- 
stood it,  towards  Mr.  Murray's  objections  to  the 
theory  of  subsidence  was  exactly  similar  to  that 
maintained  by  him  with  respect  to  Professor 
Semper's  criticism,  which  was  of  a  very  similar 
character;  and  his  position  with  regard  to  the 
whole  question  was  almost  identical  with  that 
subsequently  so  clearly  defined  by  Professor  Dana 
in  his  well-known  articles  published  in  the 
"American  Journal  of  Science"  for  1885. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  any  one,  ac- 
quainted with  the  scientific  literature  of  the  last 
seven  years,  could  possibly  suggest  that  Mr. 
Murray's  memoir  published  in  1880  had  failed  to 
secure  a  due  amount  of  attention.  Mr.  Murray, 
by  his  position  in  the  "  Challenger  "  office,  occupied 
an  exceptionally  favourable  position  for  making 
his  views  widely  known;  and  he  had,  moreover, 
the  singular  good  fortune  to  secure  from  the  first 
the  advocacy  of  so  able  and  brilliant  a  writer  as 


IV  AN   EPISCOPAL   TKILOGY  159 

Professor  Archibald  Geikie,  who  in  a  special  dis- 
course and  in  several  treatises  on  geology  and 
physical  geology  very  strongly  supported  the  new 
theory.  It  would  be  an  endless  task  to  attempt 
to  give  references  to  the  various  scientific  journals 
which  have  discussed  the  subject,  but  I  may  add 
that  every  treatise  on  geology  which  has  been 
published,  since  Mr.  Murray's  views  were  made 
known,  has  dealt  with  his  observations  at  con- 
siderable length.  This  is  true  of  Professor  A.  H. 
Green's  "  Physical  Geology,"  published  in  1882  ; 
of  Professor  Prestwich's  "  Geologv,  Chemical  and 
Physical "  ;  and  of  Professor  James  Geikie's  "  Out- 
lines of  Geology,"  published  in  1886.  Similar 
prominence  is  given  to  the  subject  in  De  Lap- 
parent's  "  Traite  de  Geologie,"  published  in  1885, 
and  in  Credner's  "Elemente  der  Geologie,"  which 
has  appeared  during  the  present  year.  If  this  be 
a  "  conspiracy  of  silence,"  where,  alas  !  can  the 
geological  speculator  seek  for  fame  ? — Yours  very 
truly,  John  W.  Judd. 

October  10,  1887. 


126 


THE    VALUE    OF    WITNESS  TO   THE 
MIRACULOUS 

[1889] 

Chakles,  or,  more  properly,  Karl,  King  of  the 
Franks,  consecrated  Roman  Emperor  in  St. 
Peter's  on  Christmas  Day,  A.D.  800,  and  known 
to  posterity  as  the  Great  (chiefly  by  his  agglutina- 
tive Gallicised  denomination  of  Charlemagne), 
was  a  man  great  in  all  ways,  physically  and 
mentally.  Within  a  couple  of  centuries  after  his 
death  Charlemagne  became  the  centre  of  innum- 
erable legends  ;  and  the  myth-making  process 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  sensibly  interfered 
with  by  the  existence  of  sober  and  truthful 
histories  of  the  Emperor  and  of  the  times  which 
immediately  preceded  and  followed  his  reign,  by  a 
contemporary  writer  who  occupied  a  high  and 
confidential  position  in  his  court,  and  in  that  of 
his  successor.    This  was  one  Eginhard,  or  Einhard, 


v        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      161 

who  appears  to  have  been  born  about  A.D.  770, 
and  spent  his  youth  at  the  court,  being  educated 
along-  with  Charles's  sons.  There  is  excellent 
contemporary  testimony  not  only  to  Eginhard's 
existence,  but  to  his  abilities,  and  to  the  place 
which  he  occupied  in  the  circle  of  the  intimate 
friends  of  the  great  ruler  whose  life  he  subse- 
quently wrote.  In  fact,  there  is  as  good  evidence 
of  Eginhard's  existence,  of  his  official  position,  and 
of  his  being  the  author  of  the  chief  works  attribut- 
ed to  him,  as  can  reasonably  be  expected  in  the 
case  of  a  man  who  lived  more  than  a  thousand 
years  ago,  and  was  neither  a  great  king  nor  a 
great  warrior.  The  works  are — 1.  "  The  Life  of 
the  Emperor  Karl."  2.  "  The  Annals  of  the 
Franks."  3.  "  Letters."  4.  "  The  History  of  the 
Translation  of  the  Blessed  Martyrs  of  Christ,  SS. 
Marcellinus  and  Petrus." 

It  is  to  the  last,  as  one  of  the  most  singular 
and  interesting  records  of  the  period  during  which 
the  Roman  world  passed  into  that  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  I  wish  to  direct  attention.1  It  was 
written  in  the  ninth  century,  somewhere,  appar- 
ently, about  the  year  830,  when  Eginhard,  ailing 
in  health  and  weary  of  political  life,  had  with- 
drawn to  the  monastery  of  Seligenstadt,  of  which 
he  was  the  founder.  A  manuscript  copy  of  the 
work,  made  in  the  tenth  century,  and  once  the 

1  My  citations  are  made  from  Teulet's  Einhardi  omnia  quoz 
extant  opera,  Paris,  1840-1843,  which  contains  a  biography  of  the 
author,  a  history  of  the  text,  with  translations  into  French,  and 
many  valuable  annotations. 


162     WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS         v 

property  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Bavon  on  the 
Scheldt,  of  which  Eginhard  was  Abbot,  is  still 
extant,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that,  in 
this  copy,  the  original  has  been  in  any  way  inter- 
polated or  otherwise  tampered  with.  The  main 
features  of  the  strange  story  contained  in  the 
"  Historia  Translationis "  are  set  forth  in  the 
following  pages,  in  which,  in  regard  to  all  matters 
of  importance,  I  shall  adhere  as  closely  as  possible 
to  Eginhard's  own  words. 

While  I  was  still  at  Court,  busied  with  secular  affairs,  I  often 
thought  of  the  leisure  which  I  hoped  one  day  to  enjoy  in  a 
solitary  place,  far  away  from  the  crowd,  with  which  the  liber- 
ality of  Prince  Louis,  whom  I  then  served,  had  provided  me. 
This  place  is  situated  in  that  part  of  Germany  which  lies  between 
the  Neckar  and  the  Maine,1  and  is  nowadays  called  the  Oden- 
wald  by  those  who  live  in  and  about  it.  And  here  having  built, 
according  to  my  capacity  and  resources,  not  only  houses  and 
permanent  dwellings,  but  also  a  basilica  fitted  for  the  perform- 
ance of  divine  service  and  of  no  mean  style  of  construction,  I 
began  to  think  to  what  saint  or  martyr  I  could  best  dedicate  it. 
A  good  deal  of  time  had  passed  while  my  thoughts  fluctuated 
about  this  matter,  when  it  happened  that  a  certain  deacon  of 
the  Roman  Church,  named  Deusdona,  arrived  at  the  Court  for 
the  purpose  of  seeking  the  favour  of  the  King  in  some  affairs  in 
which  he  was  interested.  He  remained  some  time  ;  and  then, 
having  transacted  his  business,  he  was  about  to  return  to  Rome, 
when  one  day,  moved  by  courtesy  to  a  stranger,  we  invited 
him  to  a  modest  refection  ;  and  while  talking  of  many  things 
at  table,  mention  was  made  of  the  translation  of  the  body  of 
the  blessed  Sebastian,'2  and   of   the  neglected    tombs    of   the 


1  At  present  included  in  the  Duchies  of  Hesse- Darmstadt  and 
Baden. 

2  This  took  place  in  the  year  826  a.d.  The  relics  were 
brought  from  Rome  and  deposited  in  the  Church  of  St.  Medardus 
at  Soissons. 


V        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      1G3 

martyrs,  of  which  there  is  such  a  prodigious  number  at  Rome  ; 
and  the  conversation  having  turned  towards  the  dedication  of 
our  new  basilica,  I  began  to  inquire  how  it  might  be  possible  for 
me  to  obtain  some  of  the  true  relics  of  the  saints  which  rest  at 
Rome.  He  at  first  hesitated,  and  declared  that  he  did  not  know 
how  that  could  be  done.  But  observing  that  I  was  both  anxious 
and  curious  about  the  subject,  he  promised  to  give  me  an  answer 
some  other  day. 

"When  I  returned  to  the  question  some  time  afterwards,  he  im- 
mediately drew  from  his  bosom  a  paper,  which  he  begged  me  to 
read  when  I  was  alone,  and  to  tell  him  what  I  was  disposed  to 
think  of  that  which  was  therein  stated.  I  took  the  paper  and, 
as  he  desired,  read  it  alone  and  in  secret.     (Cap.  i.  2,  3.) 

I  shall  have  occasion  to  return  to  Deacon 
Deusdona's  conditions,  and  to  what  happened 
after  Eginhard's  acceptance  of  them.  Suffice  it, 
for  the  present,  to  say  that  Eginhard's  notary, 
Ratleicus  (Ratleig),  was  despatched  to  Rome  and 
succeeded  in  securing  two  bodies,  supposed  to  be 
those  of  the  holy  martyrs  Marcellinus  and  Petrus ; 
and  when  he  had  got  as  far  on  his  homeward 
journey  as  the  Burgundian  town  of  Solothurn, 
or  Soleure,1  notary  Ratleig  despatched  to  his 
master,  at  St.  Bavon,  a  letter  announcing  the 
success  of  his  mission. 

As  soon  as  by  reading  it  I  was  assured  of  the  arrival  of  the 
saints,  I  despatched  a  confidential  messenger  to  Maestricht  to 
gather  together  priests,  other  clerics,  and  also  laymen,  to  go  out 
to  meet  the  coming  saints  as  speedily  as  possible.  And  he  and 
his  companions,  having  lost  no  time,  after  a  few  days  met  those 
who  had  charge  of  the  saints  at  Solothurn.     Joined  with  them, 

1  Now  included  in  Western  Switzerland. 


164      WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS        v 

and  with  a  vast  crowd  of  people  who  gathered  from  all  parts, 
singing  hymns,  and  amidst  great  and  universal  rejoicings,  they 
travelled  quickly  to  the  city  of  Argentoratum,  which  is  now 
called  Strasburg.  Thence  embarking  on  the  Rhine,  they  came 
to  the  place  called  Portus, ]  and  landing  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
river,  at  the  fifth  station  thence  they  arrived  at  Michilinstadt,2 
accompanied  by  an  immense  multitude,  praising  God.  This 
place  is  in  that  forest  of  Germany  which  in  modern  times  is  called 
the  Odenwald,  and  about  six  leagues  from  the  Maine.  And 
here,  having  found  a  basilica  recently  built  by  me,  but  not  yet 
consecrated,  they  carried  the  sacred  remains  into  it  and  deposited 
tb em  therein,  as  if  it  were  to  be  their  final  resting-place.  As 
soon  as  all  this  was  reported  to  me  I  travelled  thither  as  opiickly 
as  I  could.     (Cap.  ii.  14.) 

Three  days  after  Eginhard's  arrival  began  the 
series  of  wonderful  events  which  he  narrates,  and 
for  which  we  have  his  personal  guarantee.  The 
first  thing  that  he  notices  is  the  dream  of  a 
servant  of  Ratleig,  the  notary,  who,  being  set  to 
watch  the  holy  relics  in  the  church  after  vespers, 
went  to  sleep  and,  during  his  slumbers,  had  a 
vision  of  two  pigeons,  one  white  and  one  gray  and 
white,  which  came  and  sat  upon  the  bier  over  the 
relics ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  a  voice  ordered 
the  man  to  tell  his  master  that  the  holy  martyrs 
had  chosen  another  resting-place  and  desired  to 
be  transported  thither  without  delay. 

Unfortunately,  the  saints  seem  to  have  for- 
gotten to  mention  where  they  wished  to  go  ;  and, 
with    the    most   anxious   desire    to   gratify   their 

1  Probably,  according  to  Teulet,  the  present  Sandhofer-fahrt, 
a  little  below  the  embouchure  of  the  Neckar. 
3  The  present  Michilstadt,  thirty  miles  N.E.  of  Heidelberg. 


V  WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      165 

smallest  wishes,  Eginhard  was  naturally  greatly 
perplexed  what  to  do.  While  in  this  state  of 
mind,  he  was  one  day  contemplating  his  "  great 
and  wonderful  treasure,  more  precious  than  all 
the  gold  in  the  world,"  when  it  struck  him  that 
the  chest  in  which  the  relics  were  contained  was 
quite  unworthy  of  its  contents  ;  and,  after  vespers, 
he  gave  orders  to  one  of  the  sacristans  to  take  the 
measure  of  the  chest  in  order  that  a  more  fitting 
shrine  might  be  constructed.  The  man,  having 
lighted  a  wax  candle  and  raised  the  pall  which 
covered  the  relics,  in  order  to  carry  out  his 
master's  orders,  was  astonished  and  terrified  to 
observe  that  the  chest  was  covered  with  a  blood- 
like exudation  (loculum  mirum  in  modum  humcre 
sanguineo  undique  distillantem) ,  and  at  once  sent 
a  message  to  Eginhard. 

Then  I  and  those  priests  who  accompanied  me  beheld  this 
stupendous  miracle,  worthy  of  all  admiration.  For  just  as  when 
it  is  going  to  rain,  pillars  and  slabs  and  marble  images  exude 
moisture,  and,  as  it  were,  sweat,  so  the  chest  which  contained 
the  most  sacred  relics  was  found  moist  with  the  blood  exuding 
on  all  sides.     (Cap.  ii.  16.) 

Three  days'  fast  was  ordained  in  order  that  the 
meaning  of  the  portent  might  be  ascertained.  All 
that  happened,  however,  was  that,  at  the  end  of 
that  time,  the  "  blood,"  which  had  been  exuding  in 
drops  all  the  while,  dried  up.  Eginhard  is  careful 
to  say  that  the  liquid  "  had  a  saline  taste,  some- 
thing like  that  of  tears,  and  was  thin  as  water, 


166  WITNESS   TO   THE   MIRACULOUS  t 

though  of  the  colour  of  true  blood,"  and  he  clearly 
thinks  this  satisfactory  evidence  that  it  was 
blood. 

The  same  night,  another  servant  had  a  vision,  in 
which  still  more  imperative  orders  for  the  removal 
of  the  relics  were  given  ;  and,  from  that  time  forth, 
"  not  a  single  night  passed  without  one,  two,  or 
even  three  of  our  companions  receiving  revelations 
in  dreams  that  the  bodies  of  the  saints  were  to  be 
transferred  from  that  place  to  another."  At  last  a 
priest,  Hildfrid,  saw,  in  a  dream,  a  venerable 
white-haired  man  in  a  priest's  vestments,  who 
bitterly  reproached  Eginhard  for  not  obeying  the 
repeated  orders  of  the  saints  ;  and,  upon  this,  the 
journey  was  commenced.  Why  Eginhard  delayed 
obedience  to  these  repeated  visions  so  long  does 
not  appear.  He  does  not  say  so,  in  so  many  words, 
but  the  general  tenor  of  the  narrative  leads  one  to 
suppose  that  Mulinheim  (afterwards  Seligenstadt) 
is  the  "  solitary  place  "  in  which  he  had  built  the 
church  which  awaited  dedication.  In  that  case, 
all  the  people  about  him  would  know  that  he 
desired  that  the  saints  should  go  there.  If  a 
glimmering  of  secular  sense  led  him  to  be  a  little 
suspicious  about  the  real  cause  of  the  unanimity  of 
the  visionary  beings  who  manifested  themselves  to 
his  entourage^  in  favour  of  moving  on,  he  does  not 
say  so. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  clay's  journey,  the  precious 
relics  were  deposited  in  the  church  of  St.  Martin, 


V        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS     167 

in  the  village  of  Ostheim.  Hither,  a  paralytic  mm 
(sanctimGnialis  qucedam  paralytica)  of  the  name  of 
Ruodlang  was  brought,  in  a  car,  by  her  friends  and 
relatives  from  a  monastery  a  league  off.  She  spent 
the  night  watching  and  praying  by  the  bier  of  the 
saints  ;  "  and  health  returning  to  all  her  members, 
on  the  morrow  she  went  back  to  her  place  whence 
she  came,  on  her  feet,  nobody  supporting  her,  or 
in  any  way  giving  her  assistance."     (Cap.  ii.  19.) 

On  the  second  day,  the  relics  were  carried  to 
Upper  Mulinheim  ;  and,  finally,  in  accordance  with 
the  orders  of  the  martyrs,  deposited  in  the  church 
of  that  place,  which  was  therefore  renamed 
Seligenstadt.  Here,  Daniel,  a  beggar  boy  of  fifteen, 
and  so  bent  that  "he  could  not  look  at  the  sky 
without  lying  on  his  back," collapsed  and  fell  down 
during  the  celebration  of  the  Mass.  "  Thus  he  lay 
a  long  time,  as  if  asleep,  and  all  his  limbs  straight- 
ening and  his  flesh  strengthening  (receptafirmitate 
nervorum),  he  arose  before  our  eyes,  quite  well." 
(Cap.  ii.  20.) 

Some  time  afterwards  an  old  man  entered  the 
church  on  his  hands  and  knees,  being  unable  to 
use  his  limbs  properly  : — 

He,  in  presence  of  all  of  us,  by  the  power  of  God  and  the 
merits  of  the  blessed  martyrs,  in  the  same  hour  in  which  he 
entered  was  so  perfectly  cured  that  he  walked  without  so  much 
as  a  stick.  And  he  said  that,  though  he  had  been  deaf  for  five 
years,  his  deafness  had  ceased  along  with  the  palsy.  (Cap.  iii. 
33.) 


168     WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS        v 

Eginhard  was  now  obliged  to  return  to  the 
Court  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  where  his  duties  kept 
him  through  the  winter ;  and  he  is  careful  to  point 
out  that  the  later  miracles  which  he  proceeds  to 
speak  of  are  known  to  him  only  at  second  hand. 
But,  as  he  naturally  observes,  having  seen  such 
wonderful  events  with  his  own  eyes,  why  should 
he  doubt  similar  narrations  when  they  are  re- 
ceived from  trustworthy  sources  ? 

Wonderful  stories  these  are  indeed,  but  as  they 
are,  for  the  most  part,  of  the  same  general  character 
as  those  already  recounted,  they  may  be  passed 
over.  There  is,  however,  an  account  of  a  possessed 
maiden  which  is  worth  attention.  This  is  set  forth 
in  a  memoir,  the  principal  contents  of  which  are 
the  speeches  of  a  demon  who  declared  himself  to 
possess  the  singular  appellation  of  "  Wiggo,"  and 
revealed  himself  in  the  presence  of  many  witnesses, 
before  the  altar,  close  to  the  relics  of  the  blessed 
martyrs.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  revelations 
appear  to  have  been  made  in  the  shape  of  replies 
to  the  questions  of  the  exorcising  priest ;  and  there 
is  no  means  of  judging  how  far  the  answers  are, 
really,  only  the  questions  to  which  the  patient  re- 
plied yes  or  no. 

The  possessed  girl,  about  sixteen  years  of  age, 
was  brought  by  her  parents  to  the  basilica  of  the 
martyrs. 

When  she  approached  the  tomb  containing  the  sacred  bodies, 
the  priest,  according  to  custom,  read   the  formula  of  exorcism 


V  WITNESS   TO   THE  MIRACULOUS  169 

over  her  head.  When  he  began  to  ask  how  and  when  the 
demon  had  entered  her,  she  answered,  not  in  the  tongue  of 
the  barbarians,  which  alone  the  girl  knew,  but  in  the  Roman 
tongue.  And  when  the  priest  was  astonished  and  asked  how 
she  came  to  know  Latin,  when  her  parents,  who  stood  by,  were 
wholly  ignorant  of  it,  "Thou  hast  never  seen  my  parents,"  was 
the  reply.  To  this  the  priest,  "  Whence  art  thou,  then,  if  these 
are  not  thy  parents  ?  "  And  the  demon,  by  the  mouth-  of  the 
girl,  "  I  am  a  follower  and  disciple  of  Satan,  and  for  a  long  time 
I  was  gatekeeper  (janitor)  in  hell  ;  but,  for  some  years,  along 
with  eleven  companions,  I  have  ravaged  the  kingdom  of  the 
Franks."     (Cap.  v.  49. ^ 

He  then  goes  on  to  tell  how  they  blasted  the 
crops  and  scattered  pestilence  among  beasts  and 
men,  because  of  the  prevalent  wickedness  of  the 
people.1 

The  enumeration  of  all  these  iniquities,  in 
oratorical  style,  takes  up  a  whole  octavo  page  ;  and 
at  the  end  it  is  stated,  "  All  these  things  the 
demon  spoke  in  Latin  by  the  mouth  of  the  girl." 

And  when  the  priest  imperatively  ordered  him  to  come  out, 
"  I  shall  go,"  said  he,  "not  in  obedience  to  you,  but  on  account 
of  the  power  of  the  saints,  who  do  not  allow  me  to  remain  any 
longer."  And,  having  said  this,  he  threw  the  girl  down  on  the 
floor  and  there  compelled  her  to  lie  prostrate  for  a  time,  as 
though  she  slumbered.  After  a  little  while,  however,  he  going 
away,  the  girl,  by  the  power  of  Christ  and  the  merits  of  the 
blessed  martyrs,  as  it  were  awaking  from  sleep,  rose  up  quite 
well,  to  the  astonishment  of  all  present ;  nor  after  the  demon 
had  gone  out  was  she  able  to  speak  Latin  :  so  that  it  was  plain 
enough  that  it  was  not  she  who  had  spoken  in  that  tongue,  but 
the  demon  by  her  mouth.     (Cap.  v.  51.) 

1  In  the  Middle  Ages  one  of  the  most  favourite  accusations 
against  witches  was  that  they  committed  just   these  enormities. 


170      WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS        v 

If  the  "Historia  Translation  is"  contained  nothing 
more  than  has  been  laid  before  the  reader,  up  to  this 
time,  disbelief  in  the  miracles  of  which  it  gives 
so  precise  and  full  a  record  might  well  be  regarded 
as  hyper-scepticism.  It  might  fairly  be  said,  Here 
you  have  a  man,  whose  high  character,  acute  in- 
telligence, and  large  instruction  are  certified  by 
eminent  contemporaries  ;  a  man  who  stood  high  in 
the  confidence  of  one  of  the  greatest  rulers  of  any 
age,  and  whose  other  works  prove  him  to  be  an 
accurate  and  judicious  narrator  of  ordinary  events. 
This  man  tells  you,  in  language  which  bears  the 
stamp  of  sincerity,  of  things  which  happened  within 
his  own  knowledge,  or  within  that  of  persons  in 
whose  veracity  he  has  entire  confidence,  while  he 
appeals  to  his  sovereign  and  the  court  as  witnesses 
of  others ;  what  possible  ground  can  there  be  for 
disbelieving  him  ? 

Well,  it  is  hard  upon  Eginhard  to  say  so,  but  it 
is  exactly  the  honesty  and  sincerity  of  the  man 
which  are  his  undoing  as  a  witness  to  the  mira- 
culous. He  himself  makes  it  quite  obvious  that 
when  his  profound  piety  comes  on  the  stage,  his 
good  sense  and  even  his  perception  of  right  and 
wrong,  make  their  exit.  Let  us  go  back  to  the 
point  at  which  we  left  him,  secretly  perusing  the 
letter  of  Deacon  Deusdona.  As  he  tells  us,  its 
contents  were 

that  he  [the  deacon]  had  many  relics  of  saints  at  home,  and  that 
he  would  give  them  to  me  if  I  would  furnish  him  with  the 


V  WITNESS   TO    THE   MIRACULOUS  171 

means  of  returning  to  Rome  ;  he  had  observed  that  I  had  two 
mules,  and  if  I  would  let  him  have  one  of  them  and  would 
despatch  with  him  a  confidential  servant  to  take  charge  of  the 
relics,  he  would  at  once  send  them  to  me.  This  plausibly  ex- 
pressed proposition  pleased  me,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  to  test 
the  value  of  the  somewhat  ambiguous  promise  at  once  ; x  so 
giving  him  the  mule  and  money  for  his  journey  I  ordered  my 
notary  Ratleig  (who  already  desired  to  go  to  Rome  to  offer  his 
devotions  there)  to  go  with  him.  Therefore,  having  left  Aix- 
la-Chapelle  (where  the  Emperor  and  his  Court  resided  at  the 
time)  they  came  to  Soissons.  Here  they  spoke  with  Hildoin, 
abbot  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Medardus,  because  the  said  deacon 
had  assured  him  that  he  had  the  means  of  placing  in  his  posses- 
sion the  body  of  the  blessed  Tiburtius  the  Martyr.  Attracted 
by  which  promises  he  (Hildoin)  sent  with  them  a  certain  priest, 
Hunus  by  name,  a  sharp  man  {hominem  callidum),  whom  he 
ordered  to  receive  and  bring  back  the  body  of  the  martyr  in 
question.  And  so,  resuming  their  journey,  they  proceeded  to 
Rome  as  fast  as  they  could.     (Cap.  i.  3.) 

Unfortunately,  a  servant  of  the  notary,  one 
Reginbald,  fell  ill  of  a  tertian  fever,  and  impeded 
the  progress  of  the  party.  However,  this  piece  of 
adversity  had  its  sweet  uses ;  for  three  days  before 
they  reached  Rome.  Reginbald  had  a  vision. 
Somebody  habited  as  a  deacon  appeared  to  him 
and  asked  why  his  master  was  in  such  a  hurry  to 
get  to  Rome  ;  and  when  Reginbald  explained  their 
business,  this  visionary  deacon,  who  seems  to  have 
taken  the  measure  of  his  brother  in  the  flesh  with 
some   accuracy,   told   him  not  by  any   means   to 

1  It  is  pretty  clear  that  Eginhard  had  his  doubts  about  the 
deacon,  whose  pledges  he  qualifies  as  sponsiones  incertoe.  But, 
to  be  sure,  he  wrote  after  events  which  fully  justified  scep- 
ticism. 


172  WITNESS   TO   THE   MIRACULOUS  v 

expect  that  Deusdona  would  fulfil  his  promises. 
Moreover,  taking  the  servant  by  the  hand,  he  led 
him  to  the  top  of  a  high  mountain  and,  showing 
him  Rome  (where  the  man  had  never  been), 
pointed  out  a  church,  adding  "  Tell  Ratleig  the 
thing  he  wants  is  hidden  there  ;  let  him  get  it  as 
quickly  as  he  can  and  go  back  to  his  master." 
By  way  of  a  sign  that  the  order  was  authori- 
tative, the  servant  was  promised  that,  from  that 
time  forth,  his  fever  should  disappear.  And  as 
the  fever  did  vanish  to  return  no  more,  the  faith 
of  Eginhard's  people  in  Deacon  Deusdona  natur- 
ally vanished  with  it  (et  ftdem  diaconi  promissis 
non  haberent).  Nevertheless,  they  put  up  at  the 
deacon's  house  near  St.  Peter  ad  Vincula.  But 
time  went  on  and  no  relics  made  their  appearance, 
while  the  notary  and  the  priest  were  put  off  with 
all  sorts  of  excuses — the  brother  to  whom  the 
relics  had  been  confided  was  gone  to  Beneventum 
and  not  expected  back  for  some  time,  and  so  on 
— until  Ratleig  and  Hunus  began  to  despair,  and 
were  minded  to  return,  infecto  negotio. 

But  my  notary,  calling  to  mind  his  servant's  dream,  proposed 
to  his  companion  that  they  should  go  to  the  cemetery  which 
their  host  had  talked  about  without  him.  So,  having  found  and 
hired  a  guide,  they  went  in  the  first  place  to  the  basilica  of  the 
blessed  Tiburtius  in  the  Via  Labicana,  about  three  thousand 
paces  from  the  town,  and  cautiously  and  carefully  inspected  the 
tomb  of  that,  martyr,  in  order  to  discover  whether  it  could  be 
opened  without  any  one  being  the  wiser.  Then  they  descended 
into  the  adjoining  crypt,  in  which  the  bodiesr  of  the-  blessed 


V        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIKACULOUS      173 

martyrs  of  Christ,  Marcellinus  and  Petrus,  were  buried  ;  and, 
having  made  out  the  nature  of  their  tomb,  they  went  away 
thinking  their  host  would  not  know  what  they  had  been  about. 
But  things  fell  out  differently  from  what  they  had  imagined. 
(Cap.  i.  7.) 

In  fact,  Deacon  Deusdona,  who  doubtless- kept 
an  eye  on  his  guests,  knew  all  about  their 
manoeuvres  and  made  haste  to  offer  his  services,  in 
order  that,  "  with  the  help  of  God  "  (si  Beits  vntis 
eorum  favere  dignaretur),  they  should  all  work 
together.  The  deacon  was  evidently  alarmed  lest 
they  should  succeed  without  his  help. 

So,  by  way  of  preparation  for  the  contem- 
plated vol  avec  effraction  they  fasted  three  days; 
and  then,  at  night,  without  being  seen,  they  be- 
took themselves  to  the  basilica  of  St.  Tiburtiu^, 
and  tried  to  break  open  the  altar  erected  over 
his  remains.  But  the  marble  proving  too  solid, 
they  descended  to  the  crypt,  and,  "  having  evoked 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  adored  the  holy 
martyrs,"  they  proceeded  to  prise  off  the  stone 
which  covered  the  tomb,  and  thereby  exposed  the 
body  of  the  most  sacred  martyr,  Marcellinus, 
"whose  head  rested  on  a  marble  tablet  on  which 
his  name  was  inscribed."  The  body  was  taken 
up  with  the  greatest  veneration,  wrapped  in  a  rich 
covering,  and  given  over  to  the  keeping  of  the 
deacon  and  his  brother,  Lunison,  while  the  stone 
was  replaced  with  such  care  that  no  sign  of  the 
theft  remained. 


174      WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS        v 

As  sacrilegious  proceedings  of  this  kind  were 
punishable  with  death  by  the  Roman  law,  it 
seems  not  unnatural  that  Deacon  Deusdona  should 
have  become  uneasy,  and  have  urged  Ratleig  to  be 
satisfied  with  what  he  had  got  and  be  off  with  his 
spoils.  But  the  notary  having  thus  cleverly 
captured  the  blessed  Marcellinus.  thought  it  a 
pity  he  should  be  parted  from  the  blessed  Petrus, 
side  by  side  with  whom  he  had  rested,  for  five 
hundred  years  and  more,  in  the  same  sepulchre  (as 
Eginhard  pathetically  observes) ;  and  the  pious 
man  could  neither  eat,  drink,  nor  sleep,  until  he 
had  compassed  his  desire  to  re-unite  the  saintly 
colleagues.  This  time,  apparently  in  consequence 
of  Deusdona's  opposition  to  any  further  resurrec- 
tionist doings,  he  took  counsel  with  a  Greek  monk, 
one  Basil,  and,  accompanied  by  Hunus,  but  saying 
nothing  to  Deusdona,  they  committed  another 
sacrilegious  burglary,  securing  this  time,  not  only 
the  body  of  the  blessed  Petrus,  but  a  quantity  of 
dust,  which  they  agreed  the  priest  should  take, 
and  tell  his  employer  that  it  was  the  remains  of  the 
blessed  Tiburtius.  How  Deusdona  was  "  squared," 
and  what  he  got  for  his  not  very  valuable  com- 
plicity in  these  transactions,  does  not  appear.  But 
at  last  the  relics  were  sent  off  in  charge  ofLunison, 
the  brother  of  Deusdona,  and  the  priest  Hunus,  as 
far  as  Pavia,  while  Ratleig  stopped  behind  for  a 
week  to  see  if  the  robbery  was  discovered,  and, 
presumably,  to  act  as  a  blind,  if  any  hue  and  cry 


V       WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      175 

was  raised.  But,  as  everything  remained  quiet,  the 
notary  betook  himself  to  Pavia,  where  he  found 
Lunison  and  Hunus  awaiting  his  arrival.  The 
notary's  opinion  of  the  character  of  his  worthy 
colleagues,  however,  may  be  gathered  from  the 
fact  that,  having  persuaded  them  to  set  put  in 
advance  along  a  road  which  he  told  them  he  was 
about  to  ta,ke,  he  immediately  adopted  another 
route,  and,  travelling  by  way  of  St.  Maurice  and 
the  Lake  of  Geneva,  eventually  reached  Soleure. 

Eginhard  tells  all  this  story  with  the  most  naive 
air  of  unconsciousness  that  there  is  anything 
remarkable  about  an  abbot,  and  a  high  officer  of 
state  to  boot,  being  an  accessory,  both  before  and 
after  the  fact,  to  a  most  gross  and  scandalous  act 
of  sacrilegious  and  burglarious  robbery.  And  an 
amusing  sequel  to  the  story  proves  that,  where 
relics  were  concerned,  his  friend  Hildoin,  another 
high  ecclesiastical  dignitary,  was  even  less  scrupu- 
lous than  himself. 

On  going  to  the  palace  early  one  morning,  after 
the  saints  were  safely  bestowed  at  Seligenstadt,  he 
found  Hildoin  waiting  for  an  audience  in  the 
Emperor's  antechamber,  and  began  to  talk  to  him 
about  the  miracle  of  the  bloody  exudation.  In  the 
course  of  conversation,  Eginhard  happened  to 
allude  to  the  remarkable  fineness  of  the  garment 
of  the  blessed  Marcellinus.  Whereupon  Abbot 
Hildoin  observed  (to  Eginhard's  stupefaction)  that 
his  observation  was  quite  correct.   Much  astonished 

127 


176  WITNESS   TO   THE   MIRACULOUS  v 

at  this  remark  from  a  person  who  was  supposed 
not  to  have  seen  the  relics,  Eginhard  asked  him 
how  he  knew  that  ?  Upon  this,  Hildoin  saw  that 
he  had  better  make  a  clean  breast  of  it,  and  he 
told  the  following  story,  which  he  had  received 
from  his  priestly  agent,  Hurms.  While  Hunus  and 
Lunison  were  at  Pavia,  waiting  for  Eginhard's 
notary,  Hunus  (according  to  his  own  account)  had 
robbed  the  robbers.  The  relics  were  placed  in  a 
church  ;  and  a  number  of  laymen  and  clerics,  of 
whom  Hunus  was  one,  undertook  to  keep  watch 
over  them.  One  night,  however,  all  the  watchers, 
save  the  wide-awake  Hunus,  went  to  sleep;  and 
then,  according  to  the  story  which  this  "  sharp  " 
ecclesiastic  foisted  upon  his  patron, 

it  was  borne  in  upon  his  mind  that  there  must  be  some  great 
reason  why  all  the  people,  except  himself,  had  suddenly  become 
somnolent;  and,  determining  to  avail  himself  of  the  opportunity 
thus  offered  (oblata  oceasione  ittendum),  he  rose  and,  having 
lighted  a  candle,  silently  approached  the  chests.  Then,  having 
burnt  through  the  threads  of  the  seals  with  the  flame  of  the 
candle,  he  quickly  opened  the  chests,  which  had  no  locks  ; '  and, 
taking  out  portions  of  each  of  the  bodies  which  were  thus  ex- 
posed, he  closed  the  chests  and  connected  the  burnt  ends  of  the 
threads  with  the  seals  again,  so  that  they  appeared  not  to  have 
been  touched  ;  and,  no  one  having  seen  him,  he  returned  to  his 
place.     (Cap.  iii.  23.) 

Hildoin  went  on  to  tell  Eginhard  that  Hunus  at 
first  declared  to  him  that  these  purloined  relics 

1  The  words  are  scrinia  sine  clave,  which  seems  to  mean 
"having  no  key."  But  the  circumstances  forbid  the  idea  of 
breaking  open. 


V  WITNESS   TO   THE   MIRACULOUS  177 

belonged  to  St.  Tiburtius ;  but  afterwards  con- 
fessed, as  a  great  secret,  how  he  had  come  by 
them,  and  he  wound  up  his  discourse  thus  : 

They  have  a  place  of  honour  heside  St.  Medardus,  where  they 
are  worshipped  with  great  veneration  hy  all  the  people ;  but 
whether  we  may  keep  them  or  not  is  for  your  judgment,  (Cap. 
iii.  23.) 

Poor  Eginhard  was  thrown  into  a  state  of  great 
perturbation  of  mind  by  this  revelation.  An 
acquaintance  of  his  had  recently  told  him  of  a 
rumour  that  was  spread  about  that  Hunus  had 
contrived  to  abstract  all  the  remains  of  SS. 
Marcellinus  and  Petrus  while  Eginhard's  agents 
were  in  a  drunken  sleep ;  and  that,  while  the  real 
relics  were  in  Abbot  Hildoin's  hands  at  St. 
Medardus,  the  shrine  at  Seligenstadt  contained 
nothing  but  a  little  dust.  Though  greatly  annoyed 
by  this  "  execrable  rumour,  spread  everywhere  by 
the  subtlety  of  the  devil,"  Eginhard  had  doubtless 
comforted  himself  by  his  supposed  knowledge  of 
its  falsity,  and  he  only  now  discovered  how  con- 
siderable a  foundation  there  was  for  the  scandal. 
There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  insist  upon  the 
return  of  the  stolen  treasures.  One  would  have 
thought  that  the  holy  man,  who  had  admitted 
himself  to  be  knowingly  a  receiver  of  stolen  goods, 
would  have  made  instant  restitution  and  begged 
only  for  absolution.  But  Eginhard  intimates  that 
he  had  very  great  difficulty  in  getting  his  brother 
abbot  to  see  that  even  restitution  was  necessary. 


178  WITNESS   TO   THE  MIRACULOUS  y 

Hildoin's  proceedings  were  not  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  lead  any  one  to  place  implicit  confidence  in 
anything  he  might  say;  still  less  had  his  agent} 
priest  Hunus,  established  much  claim  to  confi- 
dence ;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  Eginhard 
should  have  lost  no  time  in  summoning  his  notary 
and  Lunison  to  his  presence,  in  order  that  he 
might  hear  what  they  had  to  say  about  the 
business.  They,  however,  at  once  protested  that 
priest  Hunus's  story  was  a  parcel  of  lies,  and  that 
after  the  relics  left  Rome  no  one  had  any  oppor- 
tunity of  meddling  with  them.  Moreover,  Lunison, 
throwing  himself  at  Eginhard 's  feet,  confessed 
with  many  tears  what  actually  took  place.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  after  the  body  of  St.  Mar- 
cellinus  was  abstracted  from  its  tomb,  Ratleio- 
deposited  it  in  the  house  of  Deusdona,  in  charge 
of  the  latter's  brother,  Lunison.  But  Hunus, 
being  very  much  disappointed  that  he  could  not 
get  hold  of  the  body  of  St.  Tiburtius,  and  afraid 
to  go  back  to  his  abbot  empty-handed,  bribed 
Lunison  with  four  pieces  of  gold  and  five  of  silver 
to  give  him  access  to  the  chest.  This  Lunison 
did,  and  Hunus  helped  himself  to  as  much  as 
would  fill  a  gallon  measure  (vas  sextarii  mensuram) 
of  the  sacred  remains.  Eginhard's  indignation  at 
the  "  rapine "  of  this  "  nequissimus  nebulo  "  is 
exquisitely  droll.  It  would  appear  that  the 
adage  about  the  receiver  being  as  bad  as  the  thief 
was  not  current  in  the  ninth  century. 


V        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      179 

Let  us  now  briefly  sum  up  the  history  of  the 
acquisition  of  the  relics.  Eginhard  makes  a  con- 
tract with  Deusdona  for  the  delivery  of  certain 
relics  which  the  latter  says  he  possesses.  Egin- 
hard makes  no  inquiry  how  he  came  by  them  ; 
otherwise,  the  transaction  is  innocent  enough. 

Deusdona  turns  out  to  be  a  swindler,  and  has 
no  relics.  Thereupon  Eginhard' s  agent,  after  due 
fasting  and  prayer,  breaks  open  the  tombs  and 
helps  himself. 

Eginhard  discovers  by  the  self-betrayal  of  his 
brother  abbot,  Hildoin,  that  portions  of  his  relics 
have  been  stolen  and  conveyed  to  the  latter. 
With  much  ado  he  succeeds  in  getting  them  back. 

Hildoin's  agent,  Hunus,  in  delivering  these 
stolen  goods  to  him,  at  first  declared  they  were 
the  relics  of  St.  Tiburtius,  which  Hildoin  desired 
him  to  obtain ;  but  afterwards  invented  a  story  of 
their  being  the  product  of  a  theft,  which  the 
providential  drowsiness  of  his  companions  enabled 
him  to  perpetrate,  from  the  relics  which  Hildoin 
well  knew  were  the  property  of  his  friend. 

Lunison,  on  the  contrary,  swears  that  all  this 
story  is  false,  and  that  he  himself  was  bribed  by 
Hunus  to  allow  him  to  steal  what  he  pleased  from 
the  property  confided  to  his  own  and  his  brother's 
care  by  their  guest  Ratleig.  And  the  honest 
notary  himself  seems  to  have  no  hesitation  about 
lying  and  stealing  to  any  extent,  where  the  ac- 
quisition of  relics  is  the  object  in  view. 


180      WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS        v 

For  a  parallel  to  these  transactions  one  must 
read  a  police  report  of  the  doings  of  a  "  long  firm  " 
or  of  a  set  of  horse  coupers  ;  yet  Eginhard  seems 
to  be  aware  of  nothing,  but  that  he  has  been 
rather  badly  used  by  his  friend  Hildoin,  and  the 
"  nequissimus  nebulo  "  Hunus. 

It  is  not  easy  for  a  modern  Protestant,  still  less 
for  any  one  who  has  the  least  tincture  of  scientific 
culture,  whether  physical  or  historical,  to  picture 
to  himself  the  state  of  mind  of  a  man  of  the 
ninth  century,  however  cultivated,  enlightened, 
and  sincere  he  may  have  been.  His  deepest  con- 
victions, his  most  cherished  hopes,  were  bound  up 
with  the  belief  in  the  miraculous.  Life  was  a 
constant  battle  between  saints  and  demons  for  the 
possession  of  the  souls  of  men.  The  most  super- 
stitious among  our  modern  countrymen  turn  to 
supernatural  agencies  only  when  natural  causes 
seem  insufficient ;  to  Eginhard  and  his  friends  the 
supernatural  was  the  rule ;  and  the  sufficiency  of 
natural  causes  was  allowed  only  when  there  was 
nothing  to  suggest  others. 

Moreover,  it  must  be  recollected  that  the 
possession  of  miracle-working  relics  was  greatly 
coveted,  not  only  on  high,  but  on  very  low 
grounds.  To  a  man  like  Eginhard,  the  mere 
satisfaction  of  the  religious  sentiment  was 
obviously  a  powerful  attraction.  But,  more  than 
this,  the  possession  of  such  a  treasure  was  an 
immense  practical  advantage.     If  the  saints  were 


V  WITNESS   TO   THE   MIRACULOUS  181 

duly  flattered  and  worshipped,  there  was  no 
telling  what  benefits  might  result  from  their 
interposition  on  your  behalf.  For  physical  evils, 
access  to  the  shrine  was  like  the  grant  of  the  use 
of  a  universal  pill  and  ointment  manufactory ; 
and  pilgrimages  thereto  might  suffice  to  cleanse 
the  performers  from  any  amount  of  sin.  A  letter 
to  Lupus,  subsequently  Abbot  of  Ferrara,  written 
while  Eginhard  was  smarting  under  the  grief 
caused  by  the  loss  of  his  much-loved  wife  Imma, 
affords  a  striking-  insight  into  the  current  view  of 
the  relation  between  the  glorified  saints  and  their 
worshippers.  The  writer  shows  that  he  is  any- 
thing but  satisfied  with  the  way  in  which  he  has 
been  treated  by  the  blessed  martyrs  whose  re- 
mains he  has  taken  such  pains  to  "  convey "  to 
Seligenstadt,  and  to  honour  there  as  they  would 
never  have  been  honoured  in  their  Roman  ob- 
scurity. 

It  is  an  aggravation  of  my  grief  and  a  reopening  of  my  "wound, 
that  our  vows  have  been  of  no  avail,  and  that  the  faith  which, 
we  placed  in  the  merits  and  intervention  of  the  martyrs  has 
been  utterly  disappointed. 

We  may  admit,  then,  without  impeachment  of 
Eginhard's  sincerity,  or  of  his  honour  under  all 
ordinary  circumstances,  that  when  piety,  self- 
interest,  the  glory  of  the  Church  in  general,  and 
that  of  the  church  at  Seligenstadt  in  particular, 
all  pulled  one  way,  even  the  workaday  principles 
of   morality   were    disregarded;  and,   a   fortiori, 


1S2  WITNESS   TO   THE   MIRACULOUS  v 

anything  like  proper  investigation  of  the  reality 
of  alleged  miracles  was  thrown  to  the  winds. 

And  if  this  was  the  condition  of  mind  of  such  a 
man  as  Eginhard,  what  is  it  not  legitimate  to 
suppose  may  have  been  that  of  Deacon  Deusdona, 
Lunison,  Hunus,  and  Company,  thieves  and  cheats 
by  their  own  confession,  or  of  the  probably 
hysterical  nun,  or  of  the  professional  beggars,  for 
whose  incapacity  to  walk  and  straighten  them- 
selves there  is  no  guarantee  but  their  own  ?  Who 
is  to  make  sure  that  the  exorcist  of  the  demon 
Wiggo  was  not  just  such  another  priest  as  Hunus  ; 
and  is  it  not  at  least  possible,  when  Eginhard's 
servants  dreamed,  night  after  night,  in  such  a 
curiously  coincident  fashion,  that  a  careful  inquirer 
might  have  found  they  were  very  anxious  to 
please  their  master  ? 

Quite  apart  from  deliborate  and  conscious 
fraud  (which  is  a  rarer  thing  than  is  often 
supposed),  people,  whose  mythopoeic  faculty  is 
once  stirred,  are  capable  of  saying  the  thing  that 
is  not,  and  of  acting  as  they  should  not,  to  an 
extent  which  is  hardly  imaginable  by  persons 
who  are  not  so  easily  affected  by  the  contagion  of 
blind  faith.  There  is  no  falsity  so  gross  that 
honest  men  and,  still  more,  virtuous  women, 
anxious  to  promote  a  good  cause,  will  not  lend 
themselves  to  it  without  any  clear  consciousness 
of  the  moral  bearings  of  what  they  are  doing. 

The    cases    of    miraculously-eifected    cures    of 


V        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      183 

which  Eginhard  is  ocular  witness  appear  to 
belong  to  classes  of  disease  in  which  malingering 
is  possible  or  hysteria  presumable.  Without 
modern  means  of  diagnosis,  the  names  given  to 
them  are  quite  worthless.  One  "  miracle,"  how- 
ever, in  which  the  patient,  a  woman,  was  cured  by 
the  mere  sight  of  the  church  in  which  the  relics 
of  the  blessed  martyrs  lay,  is  an  unmistakable 
case  of  dislocation  of  the  lower  jaw ;  and  it  is 
obvious  that,  as  not  unfrequently  happens  in  such 
accidents  in  wxeakly  subjects,  the  jaws  slipped 
suddenly  back  into  place,  perhaps  in  consequence 
of  a  jolt,  as  the  woman  rode  towards  the  church. 
(Cap.  v.  53.) 1 

There  is  also  a  good  deal  said  about  a  very 
questionable  blind  man — one  Albricus  (Alberich  ?) 
— who,  having  been  cured,  not  of  his  blindness, 
but  of  another  disease  under  which  he  laboured, 
took  up  his  quarters  at  Seligenstadt,  and  came  out 
as  a  prophet,  inspired  by  the  Archangel  Gabriel. 
Eginhard  intimates  that  his  prophecies  were  ful- 
filled ;  but  as  he  does  not  state  exactly  what  they 
were,  or  how  they  were  accomplished,  the  state- 
ment must  be  accepted  with  much  caution.  It  is 
obvious  that  he  was  not  the  man  to  hesitate  to 
"  ease  "  a  prophecy  until  it  fitted,  if  the  credit  of 

1  Eginhard  speaks  with  lofty  contempt  of  the  "  vnna  ac  super- 
stitiosa  pnesmnptio  "  of  the  poor  woman's  companions  in  trying 
to  alleviate  her  sufferings  with  ''herbs  and  frivolous  incanta- 
tions." Vain  enough,  no  doubt,  but  the  "  mulieivulae  "  might 
have  returned  the  epithet  "supeistitious"  with  interest. 


184      WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS        v 

the  shrine  of  his  favourite  saints  could  be  increased 
by  such  a  procedure.  There  is  no  impeachment 
of  his  honour  in  the  supposition.  The  logic  of  the 
matter  is  quite  simple,  if  somewhat  sophistical. 
The  holiness  of  the  church  of  the  martyrs  guaran- 
tees the  reality  of  the  appearance  of  the  Archangel 
Gabriel  there  ;  and  what  the  archangel  says  must 
be  true.  Therefore,  if  anything  seem  to  be  wrong, 
that  must  be  the  mistake  of  the  transmitter  ;  and, 
in  justice  to  the  archangel,  it  must  be  suppressed 
or  set  right.  This  sort  of  "  reconciliation  "  is  not 
unknown  in  quite  modern  times,  and  among  people 
who  would  be  very  much  shocked  to  be  compared 
with  a  "  benighted  papist  "  of  the  ninth  century. 

The  readers  of  this  essay  are,  I  imagine,  very 
largely  composed  of  people  who  would  be  shocked 
to  be  regarded  as  anything  but  enlightened 
Protestants.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  those  of 
them  who  have  accompanied  me  thus  far  may  be 
disposed  to  say,  "  Well,  this  is  all  very  amusing  as 
a  story,  but  what  is  the  practical  interest  of  it  ? 
We  are  not  likely  to  believe  in  the  miracles  worked 
by  the  spolia  of  SS.  Marcellinus  and  Petrus,  or  by 
those  of  any  other  saints  in  the  Roman  Calendar." 

The  practical  interest  is  this  :  if  you  donot  believe 
in  these  miracles  recounted  by  a  witness  whose 
character  and  competency  are  firmly  established, 
whose  sincerity  cannot  be  doubted,  and  who 
appeals  to  his  sovereign  and  other  contemporaries 
as  witnesses  of  the  truth  of  what  he  says,  in  a 


V  WITNESS   TO   THE   MIRACULOUS  185 

document  of  which  a  MS.  copy  exists,  probably 
dating  within  a  century  of  the  author's  death, 
why  do  you  profess  to  believe  in  stories  of  a  like 
character,  which  are  found  in  documents  of  the 
dates  and  of  the  authorship  of  which  nothing 
is  certainly  determined,  and  no  known  copies  of 
which  come  within  two  or  three  centuries  of  the 
events  they  record  ?  If  it  be  true  that  the  four 
Gospels  and  the  Acts  were  written  by  Matthew, 
Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  all  that  we  know  of  these 
persons  comes  to  nothing  in  comparison  with  our 
knowledge  of  Eginhard ;  and  not  only  is  there  no 
proof  that  the  traditional  authors  of  these  works 
wrote  them,  but  very  strong  reasons  to  the  contrary 
may  be  alleged.  If,  therefore,  you  refuse  to  believe 
that  "  Wiggo "  was  cast  out  of  the  possessed  girl 
on  Eginhard's  authority,  with  what  justice  can  you 
profess  to  believe  that  the  legion  of  devils  were 
cast  out  of  the  man  among  the  tombs  of  the 
Gadarenes  ?  And  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  accept 
Eginhard's  evidence,  why  do  you  laugh  at  the 
supposed  efficacy  of  relics  and  the  saint- worship  of 
the  modern  Romanists  ?  It  cannot  be  pretended 
in  the  face  of  all  evidence,  that  the  Jews  of  the 
year  30  A.D.,  or  thereabouts,  were  less  imbued 
with  the  belief  in  the  supernatural  than  were  the 
Franks  of  the  year  800  A.D.  The  same  influences 
were  at  work  in  each  case,  and  it  is  only  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  the  results  were  the  same.  If  the 
evidence  of  Eginhard  is  insufficient  to  lead  reason- 


186  WITNESS   TO    THE   MIRACULOUS  v 

able  men  to  believe  in  the  miracles  he  relates,  a 
fortiori  the  evidence  afforded  by  the  Gospel  and 
the  Acts  must  be  so.1 

But  it  may  be  said  that  no  serious  critic  denies 
the  genuineness  of  the  four  great  Pauline  Epistles 
— Galatians,  First  and  Second  Corinthians,  and 
Romans — and  that  in  three  out  of  these  four  Paul 
lays  claim  to  the  power  of  working  miracles.2 
Must  we  suppose,  therefore,  that  the  Apostle  to 
the  Gentiles  has  stated  that  which  is  false  ?  But 
to  how  much  does  this  so-called  claim  amount  ?  It 
may  mean  much  or  little.  Paul  nowhere  tells  us 
what  he  did  in  this  direction ;  and  in  his  sore 
need  to  justify  his  assumption  of  apostleship 
against  the  sneers  of  his  enemies,  it  is  hardly  likely 
that,  if  he  had  any  very  striking  cases  to  bring 
forward,  he  would  have  neglected  evidence  so  well 
calculated  to  put  them  to  shame.  And,  without 
the  slightest  impeachment  of  Paul's  veracity,  we 
must  further  remember  that  his  strongly- marked 
mental  characteristics,  displayed  in  unmistakable 
fashion  in  these  Epistles,  are  anything  but  those 
which  would  justify  us  in  regarding  him  as  a 
critical  witness  respecting  matters  of  fact,  or  as  a 


1  Of  course  there  is  nothing  new  in  this  argument ;  but  it 
does  not  grow  weaker  by  age.  And  the  case  of  Eginhard  is  far 
more  instructive  than  that  of  Augustine,  because  the  former 
has  so  very  frankly,  though  incidentally,  revealed  to  us  not 
only  his  own  mental  and  moral  habits,  but  those  of  the  people 
about  him. 

2  See  1  Cor.  xii.  10-28  j  2  Cor.  vi.  12  ;  Rom.  xv.  19. 


V        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      187 

trustworthy  interpreter  of  their  significance.  When 
a  man  testifies  to  a  miracle,  he  not  only  states  a 
fact,  but  he  adds  an  interpretation  of  the  fact.  We 
may  admit  his  evidence  as  to  the  former,  and  yet 
think  his  opinion  as  to  the  latter  worthless.  If 
Eginhard's  calm  and  objective  narrative  of  the 
historical  events  of  his  time  is  no  guarantee  for 
the  soundness  of  his  judgment  where  the  super- 
natural is  concerned,  the  heated  rhetoric  of  the 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  his  absolute  confidence  in 
the  "inner  light,"  and  the  extraordinary  concep- 
tions of  the  nature  and  requirements  of  logical 
proof  which  he  betrays,  in  page  after  page  of  his 
Epistles,  afford  still  less  security. 

There  is  a  comparatively  modern  man  who  shared 
to  the  full  Paul's  trust  in  the  "inner  light,"  and 
who,  though  widely  different  from  the  fiery  evan- 
gelist of  Tarsus  in  various  obvious  particulars,  yet, 
if  I  am  not  mistaken,  shares  his  deepest  charac- 
teristics. I  speak  of  George  Fox,  who  separated 
himself  from  the  current  Protestantism  of  England, 
iu  the  seventeenth  century,  as  Paul  separated 
himself  from  the  Judaism  of  the  first  century,  at 
the  bidding  of  the  "  inner  light " ;  who  went 
through  persecutions  as  serious  as  those  which 
Paul  enumerates;  who  was  beaten,  stoned,  cast 
out  for  dead,  imprisoned  nine  times,  sometimes  for 
long  periods  ;  who  was  in  perils  on  land  and  perils 
at  sea.  George  Fox  was  an  even  more  widely- 
travelled  missionary  ;  while  his  success  in  founding 


188  WITNESS   TO   THE   MIRACULOUS  v 

congregations,  and  his  energy  in  visiting  them,  not 
merely  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  and  the  West 
India  Islands,  but  on  the  continent  of  Europe  and 
that  of  North  America,  were  no  less  remarkable. 
A  few  years  after  Fox  began  to  preach,  there  were 
reckoned  to  be  a  thousand  Friends  in  prison  in 
the  various  gaols  of  England ;  at  his  death,  less 
than  fifty  }^ears  after  the  foundation  of  the  sect, 
there  were  70,000  Quakers  in  the  United  Kingdom. 
The  cheerfulness  with  which  these  people — women 
as  well  as  men — underwent  martyrdom  in  this 
country  and  in  the  New  England  States  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  facts  in  the  history  of 
religion. 

No  one  who  reads  the  voluminous  autobiography 
of  "  Honest  George  "  can  doubt  the  man's  utter 
truthfulness ;  and  though,  in  his  multitudinous 
letters,  he  but  rarely  rises  far  above  the  incoherent 
commonplaces  of  a  street  preacher,  there  can  be 
no  question  of  his  power  as  a  speaker,  nor  any 
doubt  as  to  the  dignity  and  attractiveness  of  his 
personality,  or  of  his  possession  of  a  large 
amount  of  practical  good  sense  and  governing 
faculty. 

But  that  George  Fox  had  full  faith  in  his  own 
powers  as  a  miracle -worker,  the  following  passage 
of  his  autobiography  (to  which  others  might  be 
added)  demonstrates : — 

Now  after  I  was  set  at  liberty  from  Nottingham  gaol  (where  I 
had  been  kept  a  prisoner  a  pretty  long  time)  I  travelled  as 


V        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      189 

before,  in  the  work  of  the  Lord.  And  coming  to  Mansfield 
Woodhouse,  there  was  a  distracted  woman,  under  a  doctor's 
hand,  with  her  hair  let  loose  all  about  her  ears  ;  and  he  was 
about  to  let  her  blond,  she  being  first  bound,  and  many  people 
being  about  her,  holding  her  by  violence  ;  but  he  could  get  no 
blood  from  her.  And  I  desired  them  to  unbind  her  and  let  her 
alone  ;  for  they  could  not  touch  the  spirit  in  her  by  which  she 
was  tormented.  So  they  did  unbind  her,  and  I  was  moved  to 
speak  to  her,  and  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  to  bid  her  be  quiet 
and  still.  And  she  was  so.  And  the  Lord's  power  settled  her 
mind  and  she  mended  ;  and  afterwards  received  the  truth  and 
continued  in  it  to  her  death.  And  the  Lord's  name  was 
honoured  ;  to  whom  the  glory  of  all  His  works  belongs.  Many 
great  and  wonderful  things  were  wrought  by  the  heavenly  power 
in  those  days.  For  the  Lord  made  bare  His  omnipotent  arm  and 
manifested  His  power  to  the  astonishment  of  many  ;  by  the 
healing  virtue  whereof  many  have  been  delivered  from  great 
infirmities,  and  the  devils  were  made  subject  through  His  name  : 
of  which  particular  instances  might  be  given  beyond  what  this 
unbelieving  age  is  able  to  receive  or  bear.1 

It  needs  no  long  study  of  Fox's  writings,  how- 
ever, to  arrive  at  the  conviction  that  the  distinc- 
tion between  subjective  and  objective  verities  had 
not  the  same  place  in  his  mind  as  it  has  in  that  of 
an  ordinary  mortal.  When  an  ordinary  person  would 
say  "  I  thought  so  and  so,"  or  "  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  do  so  and  so,"  George  Fox  says,  "  It  was 
opened  to  me,"  or  "  at  the  command  of  God  I 
did  so  and  so."  "  Then  at  the  command  of  God,  on 
the  ninth  day  of  the  seventh  month  1643  (Fox  being 
just  nineteen),  I  left  my  relations  and  brake  off  all 

1  A  Journal  or  Historical  Account  of  the  Life,  Travels, 
Stiferings,  and  Christian  Experiences,  &c,  of  George  Fox.  Ed. 
1694,  pp.  27,  28. 


190      WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS        y 

familiarity  or  friendship  with  young  or  old." 
"About  the  beginning  of  the  year  1647  I  was 
moved  of  the  Lord  to  go  into  Darbyshire."  Fox 
hears  voices  and  he  sees  visions,  some  of  which  he 
brings  before  the  reader  with  apocalyptic  power  in 
the  simple  and  strong  English,  alike  untutored 
and  undefiled,  of  which,  like  John  Bunyan,  his 
contemporary,  he  was  a  master. 

"  And  one  morning,  as  I  was  sitting  by  the  fire, 
a  great  cloud  came  over  me  and  a  temptation  beset 
me ;  and  I  sate  still.  And  it  was  said,  All  things 
come  by  Nature.  And  the  elements  and  stars  came 
over  me ;  so  that  I  was  in  a  manner  quite  clouded 
with  it.  .  .  .  And  as  I  sate  still  under  it,  and  let  it 
alone,  a  living  hope  arose  in  me,  and  a  true  voice 
arose  in  me  which  said,  There  is  a  living  God  who 
made  all  things.  And  immediately  the  cloud  and 
the  temptation  vanished  away,  and  life  rose  over 
it  all,  and  my  heart  was  glad  and  I  praised  the 
living  God  "  (p.  13). 

If  George  Fox  could  speak,  as  he  proves  in  this 
and  some  other  passages  he  could  write,  his  as- 
tounding influence  on  the  contemporaries  of  Milton 
and  of  Cromwell  is  no  mystery.  But  this  modern 
reproduction  of  the  ancient  prophet,  with  his 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  "  This  is  the  work  of  the 
Lord,"  steeped  in  supernaturalism  and  glorying  in 
blind  faith,  is  the  mental  antipodes  of  the  philo- 
sopher, founded  in  naturalism  and  a  fanatic  for 
evidence,  to  whom   these  affirmations  inevitably 


V        WITNESS  TO  THE  MIRACULOUS      191 

suggest  the  previous  question :  "  How  do  you 
know  that  the  Lord  saith  it  ?  "  "  How  do  you  know 
that  the  Lord  doeth  it  ?  "  and  who  is  compelled  to 
demand  that  rational  ground  for  belief,  without 
which,  to  the  man  of  science,  assent  is  merely  an 
immoral  pretence. 

And  it  is  this  rational  ground  of  belief  which  the 
writers  of  the  Gospels,  no  less  than  Paul,  and  Egin- 
hard,  and  Fox,  so  little  dream  of  offering  that  they 
would  regard  the  demand  for  it  as  a  kind  of  blas- 
phemy. 


128 


VI 

POSSIBILITIES  AND  IMPOSSIBILITIES 

[1891] 

In  the  course  of  a  discussion  which  has  been  going 
on  during  the  last  two  years,1  it  has  been  main- 
tained by  the  defenders  of  ecclesiastical  Christ- 
ianity that  the  demonology  of  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament  is  an  essential  and  integral  part 
of  the  revelation  of  the  nature  of  the  spiritual 
world  promulgated  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Indeed, 
if  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  Gospels  and  of 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  to  be  taken  for  granted, 
if  the  teachings  of  the  Epistles  are  divinely  in- 
spired, and  if  the  universal  belief  and  practice  of 
the  primitive  Church  are  the  models  which  all 
later  times  must  follow,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  those  who  accept  the  demonology  are  in  the 
right.  It  is  as  plain  as  language  can  make  it,  that 
the  writers  of  the  Gospels  believed  in  the  existence 

1  18S9-1891.     See  the  next  Essay  (VII)  and  those   which 
follow  it. 


vi  POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES         193 

of  Satan  and  the  surbordinate  ministers  of  evil  as 
strongly  as  they  believed  in  that  of  God  and  the 
angels,  and  that  they  had  an  unhesitating  faith  in 
possession  and  in  exorcism.  No  reader  of  the  first 
three  Gospels  can  hesitate  to  admit  that,  in  the 
opinion  of  those  persons  among  whom  the^ tradi- 
tions out  of  which  they  are  compiled  arose,  Jesus 
held,  and  constantly  acted  upon,  the  same  theory 
of  the  spiritual  world.  Nowhere  do  we  find  the 
slightest  hint  that  he  doubted  the  theory,  or 
questioned  the  efficacy  of  the  curative  operations 
based  upon  it. 

Thus,   when  such  a  story  as  that    about   the 
Gadarene  swine  is  placed  before  us,  the  importance 
of  the  decision,  whether  it  is  to  be  accepted  or 
rejected,  cannot  be  overestimated.     If  the  demon- 
ological  part  of  it  is  to  be  accepted,  the  authority 
of  Jesus  is  unmistakably  pledged  to  the  demono- 
logical    system   current   in    Judsea    in    the    first 
century.     The  belief  in  devils  who   possess  men 
and  can  be  transferred  from  men  to  pigs,  becomes 
as  much  a  part  of  Christian  dogma  as  any  article 
of  the  creeds.     If  it  is  to  be  rejected,  there  are  two 
alternative  conclusions.     Supposing  the  Gospels  to 
be    historically   accurate,   it    follows    that    Jesus 
shared  in  the  errors,  respecting  the  nature  of  the 
spiritual  world,  prevalent  in  the  age  in  which  he 
lived  and  among  the  people  of  his  nation.     If,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  Gospel  traditions  gives  us  only 
a  popular  version  of  the  sayings  and  doings  of 


194        POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES  vi 

Jesus,  falsely  coloured  and  distorted  by  the  super- 
stitious imaginings  of  the  minds  through  which  it 
had  passed,  what  guarantee  have  we  that  a  similar 
unconscious  falsification,  in  accordance  with  pre- 
conceived ideas,  may  not  have  taken  place  in 
respect  of  other  reported  sayings  and  doings  ? 
What  is  to  prevent  a  conscientious  inquirer  from 
finding  himself  at  last  in  a  purely  agnostic  position 
with  respect  to  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  and  conse- 
quently with  respect  to  the  fundamentals  of 
Christianity  ? 

In  dealing  with  the  question  whether  the 
Gadarene  story  was  to  be  believed  or  not,  I  con- 
fined myself  altogether  to  a  discussion  of  the  value 
of  the  evidence  in  its  favour.  And,  as  it  was  easy 
to  prove  that  this  consists  of  nothing  more  than 
three  partially  discrepant,  but  often  verbally  coin- 
cident, versions  of  an  original,  of  the  authorship 
of  which  nobody  knows  anything,  it  appeared  to  me 
that  it  was  wholly  worthless.  Even  if  the  event 
described  had  been  probable,  such  evidence  would 
have  required  corroboration ;  being  grossly  improb- 
able, and  involving  acts  questionable  in  their 
moral  and  legal  aspect,  the  three  accounts  sank  to 
the  level  of  mere  tales. 

Thus  far,  I  am  unable,  even  after  the  most  care- 
ful revision,  to  find  any  flaw  in  my  argument ;  and 
I  incline  to  think  none  has  been  found  by  my 
critics — at  least,  if  they  have,  they  have  kept  the 
discovery  to  themselves. 


VI  POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES         195 

In  another  part  of  my  treatment  of  the  case  I 
have  been  less  fortunate.  I  was  careful  to  say 
that,  for  anything  I  could  "absolutely  prove  to  the 
contrary/'  there  might  be  in  the  universe  demonic 
beings  who  could  enter  into  and  possess  men,  and 
even  be  transferred  from  them  to  pigs ;  and  that 
I,  for  my  part,  could  not  venture  to  declare  a 
priori  that  the  existence  of  such  entities  was 
"  impossible."  I  was,  however,  no  less  careful  to 
remark  that  I  thought  the  evidence  hitherto 
adduced  in  favour  of  the  existence  of  such  beings 
"  ridiculously  insufficient "  to  warrant  the  belief  in 
them. 

To  my  surprise,  this  statement  of  what,  after 
the  closest  reflection,  I  still  conceive  to  be  the 
right  conclusion,  has  been  hailed  as  a  satisfactory 
admission  by  opponents,  and  lamented  as  a  peril- 
ous concession  by  sympathisers  Indeed,  the  tone 
of  the  comments  of  some  candid  friends  has  been 
such  that  I  began  to  suspect  that  I  must  be  en- 
tering upon  a  process  of  retrogressive  metamor- 
phosis which  might  eventually  give  me  a  place 
among  the  respectabilities.  The  prospect,  perhaps, 
ought  to  have  pleased  me  ;  but  I  confess  I  felt 
something  of  the  uneasiness  of  the  tailor  who  said 
that,  whenever  a  customer's  circumference  was 
either  much  less,  or  much  more,  than  at  the  last 
measurement,  he  at  once  sent  in  his  bill ;  and  I 
was  not  consoled  until  I  recollected  that,  thirteen 
years     ago,     in     discussing     Hume's     essay     on 


196         POSSIBILITIES    AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES  VI 

"  Miracles,"  I  had  quoted,  with  entire  assent,  the 
following  passage  from  his  writings  :  "  Whatever  is 
intelligible  and  can  be  distinctly  conceived  implies 
no  contradiction,  and  can  never  be  proved  false  by 
any  demonstrative  argument  or  abstract  reasoning 
a  priori."1 

Now,  it  is  certain  that  the  existence  of  demons 
can  be  distinctly  conceived.  In  fact,  from  the 
earliest  times  of  which  we  have  any  record  to  the 
present  day,  the  great  majority  of  mankind  have 
had  extremely  distinct  conceptions  of  them,  and 
their  practical  life  has  been  more  or  less  shaped 
by  those  conceptions.  Further,  the  notion  of  the 
existence  of  such  beings  "  implies  no  contradiction." 
No  doubt,  in  our  experience,  intelligence  and 
volition  are  always  found  in  connection  with  a 
certain  material  organisation,  and  never  discon- 
nected with  it ;  while,  by  the  hypothesis,  demons 
have  no  such  material  substratum.  But  then,  as 
everybody  knows,  the  exact  relation  between 
mental  and  physical  phenomena,  even  in  ourselves, 
is  the  subject  of  endless  dispute.  We  may  all 
have  our  opinions  as  to  whether  mental  pheno- 
mena have  a  substratum  distinct  from  that  which 
is  assumed  to  underlie  material  phenomena,  or  not ; 
though  if  any  one  thinks  he  has  demonstrative 
evidence  of  either  the  existence  or  the  non-exist- 
ence   of  a  "  soul,"  all  I  can  say  is,  his  notion   of 

1  Inquiry  Concerning  the  Human  Understanding,  p.  5  ;  1748 
The  passage  is  cited  aud  discussed  in  my  Hume,  pp.  132,  133. 


VI  POSSIBILITIES  AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES         197 

demonstration  differs  from  mine.  But,  if  it  be 
impossible  to  demonstrate  the  non-existence  of  a 
"  substance  "  of  mental  phenomena — that  is,  of  a 
soul — independent  of  material  "substance";  if  the 
idea  of  such  a  "  soul "  is  "  intelligible  and  can  be 
distinctly  conceived,"  then  it  follows  that  it  is  not 
justifiable  to  talk  of  demons  as  "  impossibilities." 
The  idea  of  their  existence  implies  no  more  "  con- 
tradiction" than  does  the  idea  of  the  existence  of 
pathogenic  microbes  in  the  air.  Indeed,  the 
microbes  constitute  a  tolerably  exact  physical 
analogue  of  the  "  powers  of  the  air "  of  ancient 
belief. 

Strictly  speaking,  I  am  unaware  of  any  thing  that 
has  a  right  to  the  title  of  an  "  impossibility  " 
except  a  contradiction  in  terms.  There  are 
impossibilities  logical,  but  none  natural.  A  "  round 
square,"  a  "  present  past,"  "  two  parallel  lines  that 
intersect,"  are  impossibilities,  because  the  ideas 
denoted  by  the  predicates,  round,  'present,  intersect, 
are  contradictory  of  the  ideas  denoted  by  the 
subjects,  square,  past,  parallel.  But  walking  on 
water,  or  turning  water  into  wine,  or  procreation 
without  male  intervention,  or  raising  the  dead,  are 
plainly  not  "  impossibilities  "  in  this  sense. 

In  the  affirmation,  that  a  man  walked  upon 
water,  the  idea  of  the  subject  is  not  contradictory 
of  that  in  the  predicate.  Naturalists  are  familiar 
with  insects  which  walk  on  water,  and  imagination 
has  no  more  difficulty  in  putting  a  man  in  place  of 


198         POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES  vi 

the  insect  than  it  has  in  giving  a  man  some  of  the 
attributes  of  a  bird  and  making  an  angel  of  him  ; 
or  in  ascribing  to  him  the  ascensive  tendencies  of 
a  balloon,  as  the  "  levitationists  "  do.  Undoubt- 
edly, there  are  very  strong  physical  and  biological 
arguments  for  thinking  it  extremely  improbable  that 
a  man  could  be  supported  on  the  surface  of  the 
water  as  the  insect  is ;  or  that  his  organisation 
could  be  compatible  with  the  possession  and  use  of 
wings ;  or  that  he  could  rise  through  the  air  without 
mechanical  aid.  Indeed,  if  we  have  any  reason  to 
believe  that  our  present  knowledge  of  the  nature 
of  things  exhausts  the  possibilities  of  nature,  we 
might  properly  say  that  the  attributes  of  m'en  are 
contradictory  of  walking  on  water,  or  floating  in 
the  air,  and  consequently  that  these  acts  are  truly 
"  impossible "  for  him.  But  it  is  sufficiently 
obvious,  not  only  that  we  are  at  the  beginning  of 
our  knowledge  of  nature,  instead  of  having  arrived 
at  the  end  of  it,  but  that  the  limitations  of  our 
faculties  are  such  that  we  never  can  be  in  a  position 
to  set  bounds  to  the  possibilities  of  nature.  We 
have  knowledge  of  what  is  happening  and  of  what 
has  happened  ;  of  what  will  happen  we  have  and 
can  have  no  more  than  expectation,  grounded  on 
our  more  or  less  correct  reading  of  past  experience 
and  prompted  by  the  faith,  begotten  of  that  experi- 
ence, that  the  order  of  nature  in  the  future  will 
resemble  its  order  in  the  past. 

The  same    considerations  apply   to    the  other 


VI  POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES         199 

examples  of  supposed  miraculous  events.  The 
change  of  water  into  wine  undoubtedly  implies  a 
contradiction,  and  is  assuredly  "  impossible/5  if  we 
are  permitted  to  assume  that  the  "  elementary 
bodies  "  of  the  chemists  are,  now  and  for  ever, 
immutable.  Not  only,  however,  is  a  negative 
proposition  of  this  kind  incapable  of  proof,  but 
modern  chemistry  is  inclining  towards  the  contrary 
doctrine.  And  if  carbon  can  be  got  out  of 
hydrogen  or  oxygen,  the  conversion  of  water  into 
wine  comes  within  range  of  scientific  possibility — it 
becomes  a  mere  question  of  molecular  arrange- 
ment. 

As  for  virgin  procreation,  it  is  not  only  clearly 
imaginable,  but  modern  biology  recognises  it  as  an 
every-day  occurrence  among  some  groups  of 
animals.  So  with  restoration  to  life  after  death. 
Certain  animals,  long  as  dry  as  mummies,  and,  to 
all  appearance,  as  dead,  when  placed  in  proper 
conditions  resume  their  vitality.  It  may  be  said 
that  these  creatures  are  not  dead,  but  merely  in  a 
condition  of  suspended  vitality.  That,  however,  is 
only  begging  the  question  by  making  the  incapa- 
city for  restoration  to  life  part  of  the  definition  of 
death.  In  the  absence  of  obvious  lesions  of  some 
of  the  more  important  organs,  it  is  no  easy  matter, 
even  for  experts,  to  say  that  an  apparently  dead 
man  is  incapable  of  restoration  to  life ;  and,  in 
the  recorded  instances  of  such  restoration,  the 
want  of  any   conclusive  evidence  that  the   man 


200         POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES  vi 

was  dead  is  even  more  remarkable  than  the 
insufficiency  of  the  testimony  as  to  his  coming  to 
life  again. 

It  may  be  urged,  however,  that  there  is,  at  any 
rate,  one  miracle  certified  by  all  three  of  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  which  really  does  "  imply  a  con- 
tradiction," and  is,  therefore,  "  impossible  "  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word.  This  is  the  well- 
known  story  of  the  feeding  of  several  thousand 
men,  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of  their  hunger, 
by  the  distribution  of  a  few  loaves  and  fishes 
among  them;  the  wondrousness  of  this  already 
somewhat  surprising  performance  being  intensified 
by  the  assertion  that  the  quantity  of  the  fragments 
of  the  meal,  left  over,  amounted  to  much  more  than 
the  original  store. 

Undoubtedly,  if  the  operation  is  stated  in  its 
most  general  form ;  if  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  a 
certain  quantity,  or  magnitude,  was  divided  into 
many  more  parts  than  the  whole  contained  ;  and 
that,  after  the  subtraction  of  several  thousands  of 
such  parts,  the  magnitude  of  the  remainder 
amounted  to  more  than  the  original  magnitude, 
there  does  seem  to  be  an  a  priori  difficulty  about 
accepting  the  proposition,  seeing  that  it  appears 
to  be  contradictory  of  the  senses  which  we  attach 
to  the  words  "  whole  "  and  "  parts  "  respectively. 
But  this  difficulty  is  removed  if  we  reflect  that 
we  are  not,  in  this  case,  dealing  with  magnitude 
in  the  abstract,  or  with  "  whole  "  and  "  parts  "  in 


VI  POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES         201 

their  mathematical  sense,  but  with  concrete 
things,  many  of  which  are  known  to  possess  the 
power  of  growing,  or  increasing  in  magnitude. 
They  thus  furnish  us  with  a  conception  of  growth 
which  we  may,  in  imagination,  apply  to  loaves 
and  fishes  ;  just  as  we  may,  in  imagination^  apply 
the  idea  of  wings  to  the  idea  of  a  man.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  a  number  of  sheep  might  be  fed  on 
a  pasture,  and  yet  there  might  be  more  grass  on 
the  pasture,  when  the  sheep  left  it,  than  there  was 
at  first.  We  may  generalise  this  and  other 
such  facts  into  a  perfectly  definite  conception  of  the 
increase  of  food  in  excess  of  consumption ;  which 
thus  becomes  a  possibility,  the  limitations  of 
which  are  to  be  discovered  only  by  experience. 
Therefore,  if  it  is  asserted  that  cooked  food  has 
been  made  to  grow  in  excess  of  rapid  consumption, 
that  statement  cannot  logically  be  rejected  as  an 
a  priori  impossibility,  however  improbable  experi- 
ence of  the  capabilities  of  cooked  food  may  justify 
us  in  holding  it  to  be. 

On  the  strength  of  this  undeniable  improba- 
bility, however,  we  not  only  have  a  right  to 
demand,  but  are  morally  bound  to  require,  strong 
evidence  in  its  favour  before  we  even  take  it  into 
serious  consideration.  But  what  is  the  evidence 
in  this  case  ?  It  is  merely  that  of  those  three 
books,1  which  also  concur  in  testifying  to  the  truth 

1  The  story  in  John  vi.  5-14  is  obviously  derived  from  the 
"  five  thousand  "  narrative  of  the  Synoptics. 


202        POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES  VI 

of  the  monstrous  legend  of  the  herd  of  swine. 
In  these  three  books,  there  are  five  accounts  of  a 
"  miraculous  feeding,"  which  fall  into  two  groups. 
Three  of  the  stories,  obviously  derived  from  some 
common  source,  state  that  five  loaves  and  two 
fishes  sufficed  to  feed  five  thousand  persons,  and 
that  twelve  baskets  of  fragments  remained  over. 
In  the  two  others,  also  obviously  derived  from  a 
common  source,  distinct  from  the  preceding,  seven 
loaves  and  a  few  small  fishes  are  distributed  to 
four  thousand  persons,  and  seven  baskets  of 
fragments  are  left. 

If  we  were  dealing  with  secular  records,  I  sup- 
pose no  candid  and  competent  student  of  history 
would  entertain  much  doubt  that  the  originals  of 
the  three  stories  and  of  the  two  are  themselves 
merely  divergent  versions  of  some  primitive  story 
which  existed  before  the  three  Synoptic  gospels 
were  compiled  out  of  the  body  of  traditions  current 
about  Jesus.  This  view  of  the  case,  however,  is 
incompatible  with  a  belief  in  the  historical 
accuracy  of  the  first  and  second  gospels.1  For 
these  agree  in  making  Jesus  himself  speak  of  both 
the  "four  thousand"  and  the  "five  thousand" 
miracle.  "  When  I  brake  the  five  loaves  among 
the  five  thousand,  how  many  baskets  full  of 
broken  pieces  took  ye  up  ?  They  say  unto  him, 
twelve.      And  when  the  seven    among  the  four 

1  Matthew  xvi.  5-12  ;  Mark  viii.  14-21. 


Vi  POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES         203 

thousand,  how  many  baskets  full  of  broken  pieces 
took  ye  up  ?     And  they  say  unto  him,  seven." 

Thus  we  are  face  to  face  with  a  dilemma  the 
way  of  escape  from  which  is  not  obvious.  Either 
the  "  four  thousand  "  and  the  "  five  thousand  " 
stories  are  both  historically  true,  and  describe  two 
separate  events ;  or  the  first  and  second  gospels 
testify  to  the  very  words  of  a  conversation  between 
Jesus  and  his  disciples  which  cannot  have  been 
uttered. 

My  choice  between  these  alternatives  is  deter- 
mined by  no  a  priori  speculations  about  the  possi- 
bility or  impossibility  of  such  events  as  the  feeding 
of  the  four  or  of  the  five  thousand.  But  I  ask  myself 
the  question,  What  evidence  ought  to  be  produced 
before   I   could   feel  justified   in   saying    that   I 
believed  such  an  event  to  have  occurred  ?     That 
question  is  very  easily  answered.     Proof  must  be 
given  (1)  of  the  weight  of  the  loaves  and  fishes  at 
starting ;  (2)  of  the  distribution  to  4-5,000  persons, 
without  any  additional  supply,  of  this  quantity 
and  quality  of  food ;    (3)  of   the   satisfaction  of 
these  people's  appetites;   (4)   of  the  weight  and 
quality   of  the  fragments  gathered  up  into  the 
baskets.     Whatever  my  present  notions  of  proba- 
bility and  improbability  may  be,  satisfactory  testi- 
mony under  these  four  heads  would  lead  me  to 
believe  that  they  were  erroneous ;  and   I  should 
accept  the  so-called  miracle  as  a  new  and  unex- 
pected example  of  the  possibilities  of  nature. 


204        POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES  v\ 

But  when,  instead  of  such  evidence,  nothing  is 
produced  but  two  sets  of  discrepant  stories, 
originating  nobody  knows  how  or  when,  among 
persons  who  could  believe  as  firmly  in  devils  which 
enter  pigs,  I  confess  that  my  feeling  is  one  of 
astonishment  that  any  one  should  expect  a  reason- 
able man  to  take  such  testimony  seriously. 

I  am  anxious  to  brings  about  a  clear  under- 
standing  of  the  difference  between  "  impossi- 
bilities "  and  "  improbabilities,"  because  mistakes 
on  this  point  lay  us  open  to  the  attacks  of 
ecclesiastical  apologists  of  the  type  of  the  late 
Cardinal  Newman  ;  acute  sophists,  who  think  it 
fitting  to  employ  their  intellects,  as  burglars 
employ  dark  lanterns  for  the  discovery  of  other 
people's  weak  places,  while  they  carefully  keep  the 
light  away  from  their  own  position. 

When  it  is  rightly  stated,  the  Agnostic  view  of 
"miracles  "  is,  in  my  judgment,  unassailable.  We 
are  not  justified  in  the  a  priori  assertion  that  the 
order  of  nature,  as  experience  has  revealed  it  to  us, 
cannot  change.  In  arguing  about  the  miraculous, 
the  assumption  is  illegitimate,  because  it  involves 
the  whole  point  in  dispute.  Furthermore,  it  is  an 
assumption  which  takes  us  beyond  the  range  of 
our  faculties.  Obviously,  no  amount  of  past 
experience  can  warrant  us  in  anything  more  than 
a  correspondingly  strong  expectation  for  the 
present   and   future.     We  find,    practically,   that 


VI  POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES         205 

expectations,  based  upon  careful  observations  of 
past  events,  are,  as  a  rule,  trustworthy.  We 
should  be  foolish  indeed  not  to  follow  the  only  guide 
we  have  through  life.  But,  for  all  that,  our  highest 
and  surest  generalisations  remain  on  the  level  of 
justifiable  expectations  ;  that  is,  very  high  proba- 
bilities. For  my  part,  I  am  unable  to  conceive  of  an 
intelligence  shaped  on  the  model  of  that  of  man, 
however  superior  it  might  be,  which  could  be  any 
better  off  than  our  own  in  this  respect  ■  that  is, 
which  could  possess  logically  justifiable  grounds 
for  certainty  about  the  constancy  of  the  order  of 
things,  and  therefore  be  in  a  position  to  declare 
that  such  and  such  events  are  impossible.  Some 
of  the  old  mythologies  recognised  this  clearly 
enough.  Beyond  and  above  Zeus  and  Odin,  there 
lay  the  unknown  and  inscrutable  Fate  which,  one 
day  or  other,  would  crumple  up  them  and  the 
world  they  ruled  to  give  place  to  a  new  order  of 
things. 

I  sincerely  hope  that  I  shall  not  be  accused  of 
Pyrrhonism,  or  of  any  desire  to  weaken  the  foun- 
dations of  rational  certainty.  I  have  merely 
desired  to  point  out  that  rational  certainty  is  one 
thing,  and  talk  about  "  impossibilities,"  or  "  viola- 
tion of  natural  laws,"  another.  Rational  certainty 
rests  upon  two  grounds — the  one  that  the  evidence 
in  favour  of  a  given  statement  is  as  good  as  it  can 
be  ;  the  other  that  such  evidence  is  plainly  insuffi- 
cient.    In  the  former  case,  the  statement  is  to  be 


206        POSSIBILITIES  AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES  vi 

taken  as  true,  in  the  latter  as  untrue ;  until  some- 
thing arises  to  modify  the  verdict,  which,  however 
properly  reached,  may  always  be  more  or  less 
wrong,  the  best  information  being  never  complete, 
and  the  best  reasoning  being  liable  to  fallacy. 

To  quarrel  with  the  uncertainty  that  besets  us 
in  intellectual  affairs,  would  be  about  as  reasonable 
as  to  object  to  live  one's  life,  with  due  thought  for 
the  morrow,  because  no  man  can  be  sure  he  will 
be  alive  an  hour  hence.  Such  are  the  conditions 
imposed  upon  us  by  nature,  and  we  have  to  make 
the  best  of  them.  And  I  think  that  the  greatest 
mistake  those  of  us  who  are  interested  in  the  pro- 
gress of  free  thought  can  make  is  to  overlook  these 
limitations,  and  to  deck  ourselves  with  the  do£- 
matic  feathers  which  are  the  traditional  adorn- 
ment of  our  opponents.  Let  us  be  content  with 
rational  certainty,  leaving  irrational  certainties  to 
those  who  like  to  muddle  their  minds  with  them. 
I  cannot  see  my  way  to  say  that  demons  are  im- 
possibilities ;  but  I  am  not  more  certain  about  any- 
thing, than  I  am  that  the  evidence  tendered  in 
favour  of  the  demonology,  of  which  the  Gadarene 
story  is  a  typical  example,  is  utterly  valueless.  I 
cannot  see  my  way  to  say  that  it  is  "  impossible  " 
that  the  hunger  of  thousands  of  men  should  be 
satisfied  out  of  the  food  supplied  by  half-a-dozen 
loaves  and  a  fish  or  two ;  but  it  seems  to  me  mon- 
strous that  I  should  be  asked  to  believe  it  on  the 
faith  of  the  five  stories  which  testify  to  such  an 


VI  POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES        207 

occurrence.  It  is  true  that  the  position  that 
miracles  are  "  impossible "  cannot  be  sustained. 
But  I  know  of  nothing  which  calls  upon  me 
to  qualify  the  grave  verdict  of  Hume  :  "  There 
is  not  to  be  found,  in  all  history,  any 
miracle  attested  by  a  sufficient  number  of  men, 
of  such  unquestioned  goodness,  education,  and 
learning  as  to  secure  us  against  all  delusion  in 
themselves;  of  such  undoubted  integrity  as  to 
place  them  beyond  all  suspicion  of  any  design  to 
deceive  others;  of  such  credit  and  reputation  in 
the  eyes  of  mankind  as  to  have  a  great  deal 
to  lose  in  case  of  their  being  detected  in  any 
falsehood  ;  and  at  the  same  time  attesting  facts, 
performed  in  such  a  public  manner,  and  in  so 
celebrated  a  part  of  the  world,  as  to  render  the 
detection  unavoidable :  all  which  circumstances 
are  requisite  to  give  us  a  full  assurance  in  the  testi- 
mony of  men."  1 

The  preceding  paper  called  forth  the  following  criticism  signed 
"  Agnosco,"  to  which  I  append  my  reply  : — 

"While  agreeing  generally  with  Professor  Huxley's  remarks 
respecting  miracles,  in  "  The  Agnostic  Annual  for  1892,"  it  has 
seemed  to  me  that  one  of  his  arguments  at  least  requires  quali- 
fication. The  Professor,  in  maintaining  that  so-called  miraculous 
events  are  possible,  although  the  evidence  adduced  is  not 
sufficient  to  render  them  probable,  refers  to  the  possibility  of 
changing  water  into  wine  by  molecular  re-composition.  He 
tells  us  that,  "  if  carbon  can  be  got  out  of  hydrogen  or  oxygen, 
the  conversion  of  water  into  wine  comes  within  range  of  scientific 
possibility."    But  in  maintaining  that  miracles  (so-called)  have 

1  Hume,  Inquiry,  sec.  x.,  part  ii. 
129 


208        POSSIBILITIES   AND   IMPOSSIBILITIES  vi 

a  prospective  possibility,  Professor  Huxley  loses  sight — at  least, 
so  it  appears  to  me— of  the  question  of  their  retrospective  possi- 
bility. For,  if  it  requires  a  certain  degree  of  knowledge  and 
experiance,  yet  far  from  having  been  attained,  to  perform  those 
acts  which  have  been  called  miraculous,  it  is  not  only  improb- 
able, but  impossible  likewise,  that  they  should  have  been  done 
by  men  whose  knowledge  and  experience  were  considerably 
less  than  our  own.  It  has  seemed  to  me,  in  fact,  that  this 
question  of  the  retrospective  possibility  of  miracles  is  more  im- 
portant to  us  Eationalists,  and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  to 
Christians  also,  than  the  question  of  their  prospective  possibility, 
with  which  Professor  Huxley's  article  mainly  deals.  Perhaps 
the  Professor  himself  could  help  those  of  us  who  think  so,  by 
giving  us  his  opinion. 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  fully  appreciate  the  point  raised  by 
"  Agnosco,"  nor  the  distinction  between  the  prospective  and  the 
retrospective  "possibility"  of  such  a  miracle  as  the  conversion 
of  water  into  wine.  If  we  may  contemplate  such  an  event  as 
"possible"  in  London  in  the  year  1900,  it  must,  in  the  same 
sense,  have  been  "possible"  in  the  year  30  (or  thereabouts)  at 
Cana  in  Galilee.  If  I  should  live  so  long,  I  shall  take  great 
interest  in  the  announcement  of  the  performance  of  this  opera- 
tion, say,  nine  years  hence  ;  and,  if  there  is  no  objection  raised 
by  chemical  experts,  I  shall  accept  the  fact  that  the  feat  has 
been  performed,  without  hesitation.  But  I  shall  have  no  more 
ground  for  believing  the  Cana  story  than  I  had  before  ;  simply 
because  the  evidence  in  its  favour  will  remain,  for  me,  exactly 
where  it  is.  Possible  or  impossible,  that  evidence  is  worth 
nothing.  To  leave  the  safe  ground  of  "no  evidence"  for  specu- 
lations about  impossibilities,  consequent  upon  the  want  of 
scientific  knowledge  of  the  supposed  workers  of  miracles,  appears 
to  me  to  be  a  mistake  ;  especially  in  view  of  the  orthodox  con- 
tention that  they  possessed  supernatural  power  and  supernatural 
knowledge.  T.  H.  Huxley, 


vn 

AGNOSTICISM 

[1889] 

Within  the  last  few  months,  the  public  has 
received  much  and  varied  information  on  the 
subject  of  agnostics,  their  tenets,  and  even  their 
future.  Agnosticism  exercised  the  orators  of  the 
Church  Congress  at  Manchester.1  It  has  been 
furnished  with  a  set  of  "  articles  "  fewer,  but  not 
less  rigid,  and  certainly  not  less  consistent  than 
the  thirty-nine  ;  its  nature  has  been  analysed, 
and  its  future  severely  predicted  by  the  most 
eloquent  of  that  prophetical  school  whose  Samuel 
is  Auguste  Comte.  It  may  still  be  a  question, 
however,  whether  the  public  is  as  much  the  wiser 
as  might  be  expected,  considering  all  the  trouble 
that  has  been  taken  to  enlighten  it.  Not  only 
are  the  three  accounts  of  the  agnostic  position 
sadly  out  of  harmony  with  one   another,  but  I 

1  See  the   Official  Report  of  the   Church   Congress    held  at 
Manchester,  October  1888,  pp.  253,  254. 


210  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


propose  to  show  cause  for  my  belief  that  all  three 
must  be  seriously  questioned  by  any  one  who 
employs  the  term  "  agnostic "  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  was  originally  used.  The  learned 
Principal  of  King's  College,  who  brought  the 
topic  of  Agnosticism  before  the  Church  Congress, 
took  a  short  and  easy  way  of  settling  the 
business  : — 

But  if  tLis  be  so,  for  a  man  to  urge,  as  an  escape  from  this 
article  of  belief,  that  he  has  no  means  of  a  scientific  knowledge 
of  the  unseen  world,  or  of  the  future,  is  irrelevant.  His  differ- 
ence from  Christians  lies  not  in  the  fact  that  he  has  no  know- 
ledge of  these  things,  but  that  he  does  not  believe  the  authority 
on  which  they  are  stated.  He  may  prefer  to  call  himself  an 
Agnostic  ;  but  his  real  name  is  an  older  one — he  is  an  infidel ; 
that  is  to  say,  an  unbeliever.  The  word  infidel,  perhaps,  carries 
an  unpleasant  significance.  Perhaps  it  is  right  that  it  should. 
It  is,  and  it  ought  to  be,  an  unpleasant  thing  for  a  man  to  have  to 
say  plainly  that  he  does  not  believe  in  Jesus  Christ. x 

So  much  of  Dr.  Wace's  address  either  explicitly 
or  implicitly  concerns  me,  that  I  take  upon 
myself  to  deal  with  it ;  but,  in  so  doing,  it  must 
be  understood  that  I  speak  for  myself  alone.  I 
am  not  aware  that  there  is  any  sect  of  Agnostics ; 

1  [In  this  place  and  in  the  eleventh  essay,  there  are  references 
to  the  late  Archbishop  of  York  which  are  of  no  importance  to 
my  main  argument,  and  which  I  have  expunged  because  I  desire 
to  obliterate  the  traces  of  a  temporary  misunderstanding  with  a 
man  of  rare  ability,  candour,  and  wit,  for  whom  I  entertained  a 
great  liking  and  no  less  respect.  I  rejoice  to  think  now  of 
the  (then)  Bishop's  cordial  hail  the  first  time  we  met  after  our 
little  skirmish,  "Well,  is  it  to  be  peace  or  war  ?"  I  replied, 
"  A  little  of  both."  But  there  was  only  peace  when  we  parted, 
and  ever  after.] 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  211 


and  if  there  be,  I  am  not  its  acknowledged 
prophet  or  pope.  I  desire  to  leave  to  the  Comtists 
the  entire  monopoly  of  the  manufacture  of  imi- 
tation ecclesiasticism. 

Let  us  calmly  and  dispassionately  consider  Dr. 
Wace's  appreciation  of  agnosticism.  The  agnos- 
tic, according  to  his  view,  is  a  person  who  says  he 
has  no  means  of  attaining  a  scientific  knowledge 
of  the  unseen  world  or  of  the  future  ;  by  which 
somewhat  loose  phraseology  Dr.  Wace  presumably 
means  the  theological  unseen  world  and  future. 
I  cannot  think  this  description  happy,  either  in 
form  or  substance,  but  for  the  present  it  may 
pass.  Dr.  Wace  continues,  that  is  not  "his 
difference  from  Christians."  Are  there  then  any 
Christians  who  say  that  they  know  nothing  about 
the  unseen  world  and  the  future  ?  I  was  ignorant 
of  the  fact,  but  I  am  ready  to  accept  it  on  the 
authority  of  a  professional  theologian,  and  I 
proceed  to  Dr.  Wace's  next  proposition. 

The  real  state  of  the  case,  then,  is  that  the 
agnostic  "does  not  believe  the  authority"  on 
which  "these  things"  are  stated,  which  authority 
is  Jesus  Christ.  He  is  simply  an  old-fashioned 
"  infidel "  who  is  afraid  to  own  to  his  right  name. 
As  "  Presbyter  is  priest  writ  large,"  so  is  "  ag- 
nostic "  the  mere  Greek  equivalent  for  the  Latin 
"infidel."  There  is  an  attractive  simplicity  about 
this  solution  of  the  problem ;  and  it  has  that 
advantage  of   being   somewhat   offensive   to   the 


212  AGNOSTICISM  vn 

persons  attacked,  which  is  so  dear  to  the  less 
refined  sort  of  controversialist.  The  agnostic 
says,  "  I  cannot  find  good  evidence  that  so  and  so 
is  true."  "  Ah,"  says  his  adversary,  seizing  his 
opportunity,  "  then  you  declare  that  Jesus  Christ 
was  untruthful,  for  he  said  so  and  so ; "  a  very 
telling  method  of  rousing  prejudice.  But  suppose 
that  the  value  of  the  evidence  as  to  "what  Jesus 
may  have  said  and  done,  and  as  to  the  exact 
nature  and  scope  of  his  authority,  is  just  that 
which  the  agnostic  finds  it  most  difficult  to  deter- 
mine. If  I  venture  to  doubt  that  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  gave  the  command  "  Up,  Guards,  and 
at  'em ! "  at  Waterloo,  I  do  not  think  that  even 
Dr.  Wace  would  accuse  me  of  disbelieving  the 
Duke.  Yet  it  would  be  just  as  reasonable  to  do 
this  as  to  accuse  any  one  of  denying  what  Jesus 
said,  before  the  preliminary  question  as  to  what 
he  did  say  is  settled. 

Now,  the  question  as  to  what  Jesus  really  said 
and  did  is  strictly  a  scientific  problem,  which  is 
capable  of  solution  by  no  other  methods  than 
those  practised  by  the  historian  and  the  literary 
critic.  It  is  a  problem  of  immense  difficulty, 
which  has  occupied  some  of  the  best  heads  in 
Europe  for  the  last  century ;  and  it  is  only  of  late 
years  that  their  investigations  have  begun  to  con- 
verge towards  one  conclusion.1 

o 

1  Dr.  Wace  tells  us,  "It  may  be  asked  how  far  we  can  rely  on 
the  accounts  we  possess  of  our  Lord's  teaching  on  these  subjects. " 


vn  AGNOSTICISM  213 

That  kind  of  faith  which  Dr.  Wace  describes 
and  lauds  is  of  no  use  here.  Indeed,  he  himself 
takes  pains  to  destroy  its  evidential  value. 

"  What  made  the  Mahommedan  world  ?  Trust 
and  faith  in  the  declarations  and  assurances  of 
Mahommed.  And  what  made  the  Christian 
world  ?  Trust  and  faith  in  the  declarations  and 
assurances  of  Jesus  Christ  and  His  Apostles " 
(I.  c.  p.  253).  The  triumphant  tone  of  this 
imaginary  catechism  leads  me  to  suspect  that  its 
author  has  hardly  appreciated  its  full  import. 
Presumably,  Dr.  Wace  regards  Mahommed  as  an 
unbeliever,  or,  to  use  the  term  which  he  prefers, 
infidel ;  and  considers  that  his  assurances  have 
given  rise  to  a  vast  delusion  which  has  led,  and  is 
leading,  millions  of  men  straight  to  everlasting 
punishment.  And  this  bei^g  so,  the  "  Trust  and 
faith "  which  have  "  made  the  Mahommedan 
world,"  in  just    the    same    sense  as    they    have 


And  he  seems  to  think  the  question  appropriately  answered  by 
the  assertion  that  it  ' '  ought  to  be  regarded  as  settled  by  M. 
Kenan's  practical  surrender  of  the  adverse  case."  I  thought  I 
knew  M.  Kenan's  works  pretty  well,  but  I  hare  contrived  to 
miss  this  "practical"  (I  wish  Dr.  Wace  had  defined  the  scope 
of  that  useful  adjective)  surrender.  However,  as  Dr.  Wace  can 
find  no  difficulty  in  pointing  out  the  passage  of  M.  Renan's 
writings,  by  which  he  feels  justified  in  making  his  statement,  I 
shall  wait  for  further  enlightenment,  contenting  myself,  for  the 
present,  with  remarking  that  if  M.  Eenan  were  to  retract  and 
do  penance  in  Notre-Dame  to-morrow  for  any  contributions  to 
Biblical  criticism  that  may  be  specially  his  property,  the  main 
results  of  that  criticism,  as  they  are  set  forth  in  the  works  of 
Strauss,  Baur,  Reuss,  and  Volkmar,  for  example,  would  not  be 
sensibly  affected. 


214  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


"made  the  Christian  world/'  must  be  trust  and 
faith  in  falsehood.  No  man  who  has  studied 
history,  or  even  attended  to  the  occurrences  of 
everyday  life,  can  doubt  the  enormous  practical 
value  of  trust  and  faith ;  but  as  little  will  he  be 
inclined  to  deny  that  this  practical  value  has  not 
the  least  relation  to  the  reality  of  the  objects  of 
that  trust  and  faith.  In  examples  of  patient 
constancy  of  faith  and  of  unswerving  trust,  the 
"  Acta  Martyrum "  do  not  excel  the  annals  of 
Babism.1 

The  discussion  upon  which  we  have  now 
entered  goes  so  thoroughly  to  the  root  of  the 
whole  matter ;  the  question  of  the  day  is  so 
completely,  as  the  author  of  "  Robert  Elsmere  " 
says,  the  value  of  testimony,  that  I  shall  offer  no 
apology  for  following  it  out  somewhat  in  detail ; 
and,  by  way  of  giving  substance  to  the  argument, 
I  shall  base  what  I  have  to  say  upon  a  case, 
the  consideration  of  which  lies  strictly  within  the 
province  of  natural  science,  and  of  that  particular 
part  of  it  known  as  the  physiology  and  pathology 
of  the  nervous  system. 

I  find,  in  the  second  Gospel  (chap,  v.),  a  state- 
ment, to  all  appearance  intended  to  have  the 
Bame  evidential  value  as  any  other  contained  in 

1  [See  De  Gobineau,  Les  Religions  et  les  Philosophies  dans 
VAsie  Cenirale ;  and  the  recently  published  work  of  Mr.  E.  G. 
Browne,  The  Eftisode  of  the  Bab.] 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  215 


that  history.  It  is  the  well-known  story  of  the 
devils  who  were  cast  out  of  a  man,  and  ordered, 
or  permitted,  to  enter  into  a  herd  of  swine,  to  the 
great  loss  and  damage  of  the  innocent  Gerasene, 
or  Gadarene,  pig  owners.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  narrator  intends  to  convey  to  his  readers 
his  own  conviction  that  this  casting  out  and 
entering  in  were  effected  by  the  agency  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth ;  that,  by  speech  and  action,  Jesus 
enforced  this  conviction ;  nor  does  any  inkling 
of  the  legal  and  moral  difficulties  of  the  case 
manifest  itself. 

On  the  other  hand,  everything  that  I  know  of 
physiological  and  pathological  science  leads  me  to 
entertain  a  very  strong  conviction  that  the  pheno- 
mena ascribed  to  possession  are  as  purely  natural 
as  those  which  constitute  small-pox;  everything 
that  I  know  of  anthropology  leads  me  to  think 
that  the  belief  in  demons  and  demoniacal  posses- 
sion is  a  mere  survival  of  a  once  universal  super- 
stition, and  that  its  persistence,  at  the  present 
time,  is  pretty  much  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  the 
general  instruction,  intelligence,  and  sound  judg- 
ment of  the  population  among  whom  it  prevails. 
Everything  that  I  know  of  law  and  justice  con- 
vinces me  that  the  wanton  destruction  of  other 
people's  property  is  a  misdemeanour  of  evil 
example.  Again,  the  study  of  history,  and 
especially  of  that  of  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  leaves  no  shadow  of  doubt 


216  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


on  my  mind  that  the  belief  in  the  reality  of 
possession  and  of  witchcraft,  justly  based,  alike 
by  Catholics  and  Protestants,  upon  this  and  innu- 
merable other  passages  in  both  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  gave  rise,  through  the  special  in- 
fluence of  Christian  ecclesiastics,  to  the  most 
horrible  persecutions  and  judicial  murders  of 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  innocent  men, 
women,  and  children.  And  when  I  reflect  that 
the  record  of  a  plain  and  simple  declaration  upon 
such  an  occasion  as  this,  that  the  belief  in  witch- 
craft and  possession  is  wicked  nonsense,  would 
have  rendered  the  long  agony  of  medieval 
humanity  impossible,  I  am  prompted  to  reject,  as 
dishonouring,  the  supposition  that  such  declar- 
ation was  withheld  out  of  condescension  to 
popular  error. 

"  Come  forth,  thou  unclean  spirit,  out  of  the 
man  "  (Mark  v.  8),1  are  the  words  attributed  to 
Jesus.  If  I  declare,  as  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
doing,  that  I  utterly  disbelieve  in  the  existence  of 
"  unclean  spirits,"  and,  consequently,  in  the  possi- 
bility of  their  "  coming  forth  "  out  of  a  man,  I 
suppose  that  Dr.  Wace  will  tell  me  I  am 
disregarding  the  testimony  "  of  our  Lord." 
For,  if  these  words  were  really  used,  the  most 
resourceful  of  reconcilers  can  hardly  venture 
to  affirm  that  they  are  compatible  with  a  dis- 
belief "in  these  things."  As  the  learned  and 
1  Here,  as  always,  the  revised  version  is  cited. 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  217 


fair-minded,  as  well  as  orthodox,  Dr.  Alexander 
remarks,  in  an  editorial  note  to  the  article 
"  Demoniacs,"  in  the  "  Biblical  Cyclopaedia  "  (vol. 
i.  p.  664,  note)  : — 

.  .  .  On  the  lowest  grounds  on  which  our  Lord  and  His 
Apostles  can  be  placed  they  must,  at  least,  be  regarded^as  honest 
men.  Now,  though  honest  speech  does  not  require  that  words 
should  be  used  always  and  only  in  their  etymological  sense,  it 
does  require  that  they  should  not  be  used  so  as  to  affirm  what 
the  speaker  knows  to  be  false.  Whilst,  therefore,  our  Lord  and 
His  Apostles  might  use  the  word  5ai/jLovi(ea6ai,  or  the  phrase, 
8ai/j.6vLov  €X€lv>  as  a  popular  description  of  certain  diseases, 
without  giving  in  to  the  belief  which  lay  at  the  source  of  such  a 
mode  of  expression,  they  could  not  speak  of  demons  entering 
into  a  man,  or  being  cast  out  of  him,  without  pledging  them- 
selves to  the  belief  of  an  actual  possession  of  the  man  by  the 
demons.  (Campbell,  Prel.  Diss.  vi.  1,  10.)  If,  consequently, 
they  did  not  hold  this  belief,  they  spoke  not  as  honest  men. 

The  story  which  we  are  considering  does  not 
rest  on  the  authority  of  the  second  Gospel  alone. 
The  third  confirms  the  second,  especially  in  the 
matter  of  commanding  the  unclean  spirit  to  come 
out  of  the  man  (Luke  viii.  29) ;  and,  although 
the  first  Gospel  either  gives  a  different  version  of 
the  same  story,  or  tells  another  of  like  kind,  the 
essential  point  remains :  "  If  thou  cast  us  out, 
send  us  away  into  the  herd  of  swine.  And  He 
said  unto  them  :   Go  ! "  (Matt.  viii.  31,  32). 

If  the  concurrent  testimony  of  the  three 
synoptics,  then,  is  really  sufficient  to  do  away 
with  all  rational  doubt  as  to  a  matter  of  fact  of 
the  utmost  practical  and  speculative  importance — 


218  AGNOSTICISM  VII 

belief  or  disbelief  in  which  may  affect,  and  has 
affected,  men's  lives  and  their  conduct  towards 
other  men,  in  the  most  serious  way — then  I  am 
bound  to  believe  that  Jesus  implicitly  affirmed 
himself  to  possess  a  "  knowledge  of  the  unseen 
world,"  which  afforded  full  confirmation  of  the 
belief  in  demons  and  possession  current  among 
his  contemporaries.  If  the  story  is  true,  the 
mediseval  theory  of  the  invisible  world  may  be, 
and  probably  is,  quite  correct ;  and  the  witch- 
finders,  from  Sprenger  to  Hopkins  and  Mather, 
are  much-maligned  men. 

On  the  other  hand,  humanity,  noting  the 
frightful  consequences  of  this  belief;  common 
sense,  observing  the  futility  of  the  evidence  on 
which  it  is  based,  in  all  cases  that  have  been 
properly  investigated ;  science,  more  and  more 
seeing  its  way  to  inclose  all  the  phenomena  of 
so-called  "  possession "  within  the  domain  of 
pathology,  so  far  as  they  are  not  to  be  relegated 
to  that  of  the  police — all  these  powerful  influences 
concur  in  warning  us,  at  our  peril,  against 
accepting  the  belief  without  the  mosfc  careful 
scrutiny  of  the  authority  on  which  it  rests. 

I  can  discern  no  escape  from  this  dilemma: 
either  Jesus  said  what  he  is  reported  to  have 
said,  or  he  did  not.  In  the  former  case,  it  is  in- 
evitable that  his  authority  on  matters  connected 
with  the  "  unseen  world "  should  be  roughly 
shaken;  in  the  latter,  the  blow  falls  upon  the 


VII  •    AGNOSTICISM  219 

authority  of  the  synoptic  Gospels.  If  their  report 
on  a  matter  of  such  stupendous  and  far-reaching 
practical  import  as  this  is  untrustworthy,  how  can 
we  be  sure  of  its  trustworthiness  in  other  cases  ? 
The  favourite  "  earth/'  in  which  the  hard-pressed 
reconciler  takes  refuge,  that  the  Bible  does  not 
profess  to  teach  science,1  is  stopped  in  this 
instance.  For  the  question  of  the  existence  of 
demons  and  of  possession  by  them,  though  it  lies 
strictly  within  the  province  of  science,  is  also  of 
the  deepest  moral  and  religious  significance.  If 
physical  and  mental  disorders  are  caused  by  de- 
mons, Gregory  of  Tours  and  his  contemporaries 
rightly  considered  that  relics  and  exorcists  were 
more  useful  than  doctors;  the  gravest  questions 
arise  as  to  the  legal  and  moral  responsibilities  of 
persons  inspired  by  demoniacal  impulses ;  and  our 
whole    conception   of  the   universe   and   of    our 


1  Does  any  one  really  mean  to  say  that  there  is  any  internal  or 
external  criterion  by  which  the  reader  of  a  biblical  statement,  in 
which  scientific  matter  is  contained,  is  enabled  to  judge  whether 
it  is  to  be  taken  aic  serieux  or  not  ?  Is  the  account  of  the 
Deluge,  accepted  as  true  in  the  ISTew  Testament,  less  precise  and 
specific  than  that  of  the  call  of  Abraham,  also  accepted  as  true 
therein  ?  By  what  mark  does  the  story  of  the  feeding  with 
manna  in  the  wilderness,  which  involves  some  very  curious 
scientific  problems,  show  that  it  is  meant  merely  for  edification, 
while  the  story  of  the  inscription  of  the  Law  on  stone  by  the 
hand  of  Jahveh  is  literally  true  ?  If  the  story  of  the  Fall  is  not 
the  true  record  of  an  historical  occurrence,  what  becomes  of 
Pauline  theology  ?  Yet  the  story  of  the  Fall  as  directly  con- 
flicts with  probability,  and  is  as  devoid  of  trustworthy  evidence, 
as  that  of  the  Creation  or  that  of  the  Deluge,  with  which  it 
forms  an  harmoniously  legendary  series. 


220  AGNOSTICISM  vil 

relations  to  it  becomes  totally  different  from  what 
it  would  be  on  the  contrary  hypothesis. 

The  theory  of  life  of  an  average  mediaeval 
Christian  was  as  different  from  that  of  an  average 
nineteenth-century  Englishman  as  that  of  a  West 
African  negro  is  now,  in  these  respects.  The 
modern  world  is  slowly,  but  surely,  shaking  off 
these  and  other  monstrous  survivals  of  savage 
delusions  ;  and,  whatever  happens,  it  will  not  re- 
turn to  that  wallowing  in  the  mire.  Until  the 
contrary  is  proved,  I  venture  to  doubt  whether,  at 
this  present  moment,  any  Protestant  theologian, 
who  has  a  reputation  to  lose,  will  say  that  he 
believes  the  Gadarene  story. 

The  choice  then  lies  between  discrediting  those 
who  compiled  the  Gospel  biographies  and  dis- 
believing the  Master,  whom  they,  simple  souls, 
thought  to  honour  by  preserving  such  traditions 
of  the  exercise  of  his  authority  over  Satan's 
invisible  world.  This  is  the  dilemma.  No  deep 
scholarship,  nothing  but  a  knowledge  of  the 
revised  version  (on  which  it  is  to  be  supposed 
all  that  mere  scholarship  can  do  has  been  done), 
with  the  application  thereto  of  the  commonest 
canons  of  common  sense,  is  needful  to  enable  us 
to  make  a  choice  between  its  alternatives.  It  is 
hardly  doubtful  that  the  story,  as  told  in  the  first 
Gospel,  is  merely  a  version  of  that  told  in  the 
second  and  third.  Nevertheless,  the  discrepancies 
are  serious  and  irreconcilable ;  and,  on  this  ground 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  221 


alone,  a  suspension  of  judgment,  at  the  least,  is 
called  for.  But  there  is  a  great  deal  more  to  be 
said.  From  the  dawn  of  scientific  biblical  criti- 
cism until  the  present  day,  the  evidence  against 
the  long-cherished  notion  that  the  three  synoptic 
Gospels  are  the  works  of  three  independent 
authors,  each  prompted  by  Divine  inspiration, 
has  steadily  accumulated,  until,  at  the  present 
time,  there  is  no  visible  escape  from  the  con- 
clusion that  each  of  the  three  is  a  completion 
consisting  of  a  groundwork  common  to  all  three — ■ 
the  threefold  tradition ;  and  of  a  superstructure, 
consisting,  firstly,  of  matter  common  to  it  with 
one  of  the  others,  and,  secondly,  of  matter  special 
to  each.  The  use  of  the  terms  "  groundwork " 
and  "  superstructure "  by  no  means  implies  that 
the  latter  must  be  of  later  date  than  the  former. 
On  the  contrary,  some  parts  of  it  may  be,  and 
probably  are,  older  than  some  parts  of  the 
groundwork.1 

The  story  of  the  Gadarene  swine  belongs  to 
the  groundwork  ;  at  least,  the  essential  part  of  it, 
in  which  the  belief  in  demoniac  possession  is 
expressed,  does ;  and  therefore  the  compilers  of 
the  first,  second,  and  third  Gospels,  whoever  they 

1  See,  for  an  admirable  discussion  of  the  whole  subject,  Dr, 
Abbott's  article  on  the  Gospels  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  ; 
and  the  remarkable  monograph  by  Professor  Yolkmar,  Jesus 
Nazarenus  und  die  erste  christliehe  Zcit  (1882).  Whether  we 
agree  with  the  conclusions  of  these  writers  or  not,  the  method  of 
critical  investigation  which  they  adopt  is  unimpeachable. 


222  AGNOSTICISM  VII 

were,  certainly  accepted  that  belief  (which,  indeed, 
was  universal  among  both  Jews  and  pagans  at 
that  time),  and  attributed  it  to  Jesus. 

What,  then,  do  we  know  about  the  originator, 
or  originators,  of  this  groundwork — of  that  three- 
fold tradition  which  all  three  witnesses  (in  Paley's 
phrase)  agree  upon — that  we  should  allow  their 
mere  statements  to  outweigh  the  counter  argu- 
ments of  humanity,  of  common  sense,  of  exact 
science,  and  to  imperil  the  respect  which  all 
would  be  glad  to  be  able  to  render  to  their 
Master  ? 

Absolutely  nothing.1  There  is  no  proof,  no- 
thing more  than  a  fair  presumption,  that  any  one 
of  the  Gospels  existed,  in  the  state  in  which  we 
find  it  in  the  authorised  version  of  the  Bible, 
before  the  second  century,  or,  in  other  words, 
sixty  or  seventy  years  after  the  events  recorded. 
And,  between  that  time  and  the  date  of  the 
oldest  extant  manuscripts  of  the  Gospels,  there  is 
no  telling  what  additions  and  alterations  and 
interpolations  may  have  been  made.  It  may  be 
said  that  this  is  all  mere  speculation,  but  it  is  a 
good  deal  more.  As  competent  scholars  and 
honest  men,  our  revisers  have  felt  compelled  to 
point  out  that  such  things  have  happened  even 

1  Notwithstanding  the  hard  words  shot  at  me  from  behind 
the  hedge  of  anonymity  by  a  writer  in  a  recent  number  of  the 
Quart'  rly  Review,  I  repeat,  without  the  slightest  fear  of  refuta- 
tion, that  the  four  Gospels,  as  they  have  come  to  us,  are  the 
work  of  unknown  writers. 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  223 


since  the  date  of  the  oldest  known  manuscripts. 
The  oldest  two  copies  of  the  second  Gospel  end 
with  the  8th  verse  of  the  16th  chapter ;  the 
remaining  twelve  verses  are  spurious,  and  it  is 
noteworthy  that  the  maker  of  the  addition  has  not 
hesitated  to  introduce  a  speech  in  which  Jesus 
promises  his  disciples  that  "in  My  name  shall 
they  cast  out  devils." 

The  other  passage  "  rejected  to  the  margin  "  is 
still  more  instructive.  It  is  that  touching 
apologue,  with  its  profound  ethical  sense,  of  the 
woman  taken  in  adultery — which,  if  internal 
evidence  were  an  infallible  guide,  might  well  be 
affirmed  to  be  a  typical  example  of  the  teachings 
of  Jesus.  Yet,  say  the  revisers,  pitilessly,  "Most 
of  the  ancient  authorities  emit  John  vii.  53-viii. 
11."  Now  let  any  reasonable  man  ask  himself 
this  question.  If,  after  an  approximate  settle- 
ment of  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
even  later  than  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries, 
literary  fabricators  had  the  skill  and  the  audacity 
to  make  such  additions  and  interpolations  as 
these,  what  may  they  have  done  when  no  one 
had  thought  of  a  canon ;  when  oral  tradition,  still 
unfixed,  was  regarded  as  more  valuable  than  such 
written  records  as  may  have  existed  in  the  latter 
portion  of  the  first  century?  Or,  to  take  the 
other  alternative,  if  those  who  gradually  settled 
the  canon  did  not  know  of  the  existence  of  the 
oldest  codices  which  have  come  down  to  us ;  or  if, 

130 


\, 


224  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


knowing  them,  they  rejected  their  authority,  what 
is  to  be  thought  of  their  competency  as  critics  of 
the  text  ? 

People  who  object  to  free  criticism  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures  forget  that  they  are  what 
they  are  in  virtue  of  very  free  criticism  ;  unless 
the  advocates  of  inspiration  are  prepared  to  affirm 
that  the  majority  of  influential  ecclesiastics  during 
several  centuries  were  safeguarded  against  error. 
For,  even  granting  that  some  books  of  the  period 
were  inspired,  they  were  certainly  few  amongst 
many;  and  those  who  selected  the  canonical 
books,  unless  they  themselves  were  also  inspired, 
must  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  mere  critics,  and, 
from  the  evidence  they  have  left  of  their  intel- 
lectual habits,  very  uncritical  critics.  When  one 
thinks  that  such  delicate  questions  as  those 
involved  fell  into  the  hands  of  men  like  Papias 
(who  believed  in  the  famous  millenarian  grape 
story) ;  of  Irenaeus  with  his  "  reasons "  for  the 
existence  of  only  four  Gospels  ;  and  of  such  calm 
and  dispassionate  judges  as  Tertullian,  with  his 
"  Credo  quia  impossible  "  :  the  marvel  is  that  the 
selection  which  constitutes  our  New  Testament  is 
as  free  as  it  is  from  obviously  objectionable  matter. 
The  apocryphal  Gospels  certainly  deserve  to  be 
apocryphal;  but  one  may  suspect  that  a  little 
more  critical  discrimination  would  have  enlarged 
the  Apocrypha  not  inconsiderably. 

At  this  point  a  very  obvious   objection  arises 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  225 


and  deserves  full  and  candid  consideration.  It 
msij  be  said  that  critical  scepticism  carried  to  the 
length  suggested  is  historical  pyrrhonism  ;  that  if 
we  are  altogether  to  discredit  an  ancient  or  a 
modern  historian,  because  he  has  assumed  fabulous 
matter  to  be  true,  it  will  be  as  well  to  giye  up 
paying  any  attention  to  history.  It  may  be  said, 
and  with  great  justice,  that  Eginhard's  "  Life 
of  Charlemagne "  is  none  the  less  trustworthy 
because  of  the  astounding  revelation  of  credulity, 
of  lack  of  judgment,  and  even  of  respect  for  the 
eighth  commandment,  which  he  has  unconsciously 
made  in  the  "  History  of  the  Translation  of  the 
Blessed  Martyrs  Marcellinus  and  Paul."  Or,  to  go 
no  further  back  than  the  last  number  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  surely  that  excellent  lady,  Miss 
Strickland,  is  not  to  be  refused  all  credence,  because 
of  the  myth  about  the  second  James's  remains, 
which  she  seems  to  have  unconsciously  invented. 

Of  course  this  is  perfectly  true.  I  am  afraid 
there  is  no  man  alive  whose  witness  could  be 
accepted,  if  the  condition  precedent  were  proof 
that  he  had  never  invented  and  promulgated  a 
myth.  In  the  minds  of  all  of  us  there  are  little 
places  here  and  there,  like  the  indistinguishable 
spots  on  a  rock  which  give  foothold  to  moss  or 
stonecrop ;  on  which,  if  the  germ  of  a  myth  fall,  it 
is  certain  to  grow,  without  in  the  least  degree 
affecting  our  accuracy  or  truthfulness  elsewhere. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  knew  that  he  could  not  repeat  a 


226  AGNOSTICISM  vn 

story  without,  as  he  said,  "  giving  it  a  new  hat 
and  stick."     Most   of  us  differ  from  Sir  Walter 
only  in  not  knowing  about  this  tendency  of  the 
mythopoeic  faculty  to  break  out  unnoticed.       But 
it  is  also  perfectly  true  that  the  mythopoeic  faculty 
is    not    equally  active    in    all    minds,  nor    in    all 
regions  and  under  all  conditions  of  the  same  mind. 
David    Hume    was    certainly    not   so   liable    to 
temptation    as  the  Venerable   Bede,  or  even   as 
some  recent  historians  who  could  be  mentioned ; 
and  the  most  imaginative  of  debtors,  if  he  owes 
five  pounds,  never  makes  an  obligation  to  pay  a 
hundred  out  of  it.      The  rule  of  common  sense  is 
prima  facie  to  trust  a  witness  in  all  matters,  in 
which  neither  his   self-interest,  his  passions,  his 
prejudices,  nor  that  love  of  the  marvellous,  which 
is  inherent  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  in  all  man- 
kind, are  strongly  concerned  ;  and,  when  they  are 
involved,  to  require  corroborative  evidence  in  exact 
proportion  to  the  contravention  of  probability  by 
the  thing  testified. 

Now,  in  the  Gadarene  affair,  I  do  not  think  I 
am  unreasonably  sceptical,  if  I  say  that  the 
existence  of  demons  who  can  be  transferred  from 
a  man  to  a  pig,  does  thus  contravene  probability. 
Let  me  be  perfectly  candid.  I  admit  I  have  no 
a  priori  objection  to  offer.  There  are  physical 
things,  such  as  tamim  and  trichinm,  which  can  be 
transferred  from  men  to  pigs,  and  vice  versa,  and 
which   do   undoubtedly  produce   most   diabolical 


711 


AGNOSTICISM  227 


and  deadly  effects  on  both.  For  anything  I  can 
absolutely  prove  to  the  contrary,  there  may  be 
spiritual  things  capable  of  the  same  transmigra- 
tion, with  like  effects.  Moreover  I  am  bound  to 
add  that  perfectly  truthful  persons,  for  whom  I 
have  the  greatest  respect,  believe  in  stories  about 
spirits  of  the  present  day,  quite  as  improbable  as 
that  we  are  considering. 

So  I  declare,  as  plainly  as  I  can,  that  I  am  unable 
to  show  cause  why  these  transferable  devils  should 
not  exist;  nor  can  I  deny  that,  not  merely  the 
whole  Roman  Church,  but  many  Wacean  "  infidels  " 
of  no  mean  repute,  do  honestly  and  firmly  believe 
that  the  activity  of  such  like  demonic  beings  is  in 
full  swing  in  this  year  of  grace  1889. 

Nevertheless,  as  good  Bishop  Butler  says, 
"  probability  is  the  guide  of  life ; "  and  it  seems  to 
me  that  this  is  just  one  of  the  cases  in  which  the 
canon  of  credibility  and  testimony;  which  I  have 
ventured  to  lay  down,  has  full  force.  So  that, 
with  the  most  entire  respect  for  many  (by  no 
means  for  all)  of  our  witnesses  for  the  truth  of 
demonology,  ancient  and  modern,  I  conceive  their 
evidence  on  this  particular  matter  to  be  ridicu- 
lously insufficient  to  warrant  their  conclusion.1 

1  Their  arguments,  in  the  long  run,  are  always  reducible  to 
one  form.  Otherwise  trustworthy  witnesses  affirm  that  such  and 
such  events  took  place.  These  events  are  inexplicable,  except 
the  agency  of  "  spirits"  is  admitted.  Therefore  "  spirits  "  were 
the  cause  of  the  phenomena. 

And  the  heads  of  the  reply  are  always  the  same.     Remember 


228  AGNOSTICISM 


vil 


After  what  has  been  said,  I  do  not  think  that 
any  sensible  man,  unless  he  happen  to  be  angry, 
will  accuse  me  of  "  contradicting  the  Lord  and  His 
Apostles  "  if  I  reiterate  my  total  disbelief  in  the 
whole  Gadarene  story.  But,  if  that  story  is  dis- 
credited, all  the  other  stories  of  demoniac  posses- 
sion fall  under  suspicion.  And  if  the  belief  in 
demons  and  demoniac  possession,  which  forms  the 
sombre  background  of  the  whole  picture  of  primi- 
tive Christianity,  presented  to  us  in  the  New 
Testament,  is  shaken,  what  is  to  be  said,  in  any 
case,  of  the  uncorroborated  testimony  of  the 
Gospels  with  respect  to  "  the  unseen  world  "  ? 

I  am  not  aware  that  I  have  been  influenced  by 
any  more  bias  in  regard  to  the  Gadarene  story 
than  I  have  been  in  dealing  with  other  cases  of 
like  kind  the  investigation  of  which  has  interested 
me.  I  was  brought  up  in  the  strictest  school  of 
evangelical  orthodoxy;  and  when  I  was  old  enough 
to  think  for  myself,  I  started  upon  my  journey  of 
inquiry  with  little  doubt  about  the  general  truth 
of  what  I  had  been  taught ;  and  with  that  feeling 


Goethe's  aphorism  :  "  Alles  factische  ist  schon  Theorie."  Trust- 
worthy witnesses  are  constantly  deceived,  or  deceive  themselves, 
in  their  interpretation  of  sensible  phenomena.  No  one  can 
prove  that  the  sensible  phenomena,  in  these  cases,  could  be 
caused  only  by  the  agency  of  spirits  :  and  there  is  abundant 
ground  for  believing  that  they  may  be  produced  in  other  ways. 
Therefore,  the  utmost  that  can  be  reasonably  asked  for,  on  the 
evidence  as  it  stands,  is  suspension  of  judgment.  And,  on  the 
necessity  for  even  that  suspension,  reasonable  men  may  differ, 
according  to  their  views  of  probability. 


vn  AGNOSTICISM  229 

of  the  unpleasantness  of  being  called  an  "  infidel " 
which,  we  are  told,  is  so  right  and  proper.  Near 
my  journey's  end,  I  find  myself  in  a  condition  of 
something  more  than  mere  doubt  about  these 
matters. 

In  the  course  of  other  inquiries,  I  have  had  to 
do  with  fossil  remains  which  looked  quite  plain  at 
a  distance,  and  became  more  and  more  indistinct 
as  I  tried  to  define  their  outline  by  close  inspec- 
tion.     There   was   something    there — something 
which,  if  I  could  win  assurance  about  it,  might 
mark  a  new  epoch  in  the  history  of  the   earth ; 
but,  study  as  long  as  I  might,  certainty  eluded  my 
grasp.     So  has  it  been  with  me  in  my  efforts  to 
define  the  grand  figure  of  Jesus  as  it  lies  in  the 
primary  strata  of  Christian  literature.     Is  he  the 
kindly,  peaceful  Christ  depicted  in  the  Catacombs  ? 
Or  is  he  the  stern  Judge  who  frowns  above  the 
altar  of  SS.  Cos  mas  and  Damianus  ?     Or  can  he 
be   rightly   represented  by  the  bleeding  ascetic, 
broken   down   by    physical    pain,    of    too    many 
mediaeval  pictures  ?     Are  we  to  accept  the  Jesus 
of  the  second,  or  the  Jesus  of  the  fourth  Gospel, 
as  the  true  Jesus  ?     What  did  he  really  say  and 
do ;  and  how  much   that  is  attributed  to  him,  in 
speech  and  action,  is  the  embroidery  of  the  various 
parties  into  which   his  followers  tended  to  split 
themselves   within   twenty    years   of   his   death, 
when    even    the    threefold    tradition    was    only 
nascent  ? 


230  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


If  any  one  will  answer  these  questions  for  me 
with  something  more  to  the  point  than  feeble  talk 
about  the  "  cowardice  of  agnosticism,"  I  shall  be 
deeply  his  debtor.  Unless  and  until  they  are 
satisfactorily  answered,  I  say  of  agnosticism  in 
this  matter,  "  <Ty  suis,  et  fy  reste." 

But,  as  we  have,  seen,  it  is  asserted  that  I  have 
no  business  to  call  myself  an  agnostic  ;  that,  if  I 
am  not  a  Christian  I  am  an  infidel ;  and  that  I 
ought  to  call  myself  by  that  name  of  "  unpleasant 
significance."  Well,  I  do  not  ca»re  much  what  I 
am  called  by  other  people,  and  if  I  had  at  my  side 
all  those  who,  since  the  Christian  era,  have  been 
called  infidels  by  other  folks,  I  could  not  desire 
better  company.  If  these  are  my  ancestors,  I  pre- 
fer, with  the  old  Frank,  to  be  with  them  wherever 
they  are.  But  there  are  several  points  in  Dr. 
Wace's  contention  which  must  be  elucidated 
before  I  can  even  think  of  undertaking  to  carry 
out  his  wishes.  I  must,  for  instance,  know  what 
a  Christian  is.  Now  what  is  a  Christian  ?  By 
whose  authority  is  the  signification  of  that  term 
defined  ?  Is  there  any  doubt  that  the  immediate 
followers  of  Jesus,  the  "  sect  of  the  Nazarenes," 
were  strictly  orthodox  Jews  differing  from  other 
Jews  not  more  than  the  Sadducees,  the  Pharisees, 
and  the  Essenes  differed  from  one  another ;  in  fact, 
only  in  the  belief  that  the  Messiah,  for  whom  the 
rest  of  their  nation  waited,  had  come  ?  Was  not 
their   chief,   "James,  the  brother  of  the   Lord," 


vii  AGNOSTICISM  231 

reverenced  alike  by  Sadducee,  Pharisee,  and 
Nazarene  ?  At  the  famous  conference  which, 
according  to  the  Acts,  took  place  at  Jerusalem, 
does  not  James  declare  that  "  myriads  "  of  Jews, 
who,  by  that  time,  had  become  Nazarenes,  were 
"  all  zealous  for  the  Law  "  ?  Was  not  the^  name 
of  "  Christian  "  first  used  to  denote  the  converts  to 
the  doctrine  promulgated  by  Paul  and  Barnabas  at 
Antioch  ?  Does  the  subsequent  history  of  Chris- 
tianity leave  any  doubt  that,  from  this  time  forth, 
the  "  little  rift  within  the  lute  "  caused  by  the  new 
teaching,  developed,  if  not  inaugurated,  at  Antioch, 
grew  wider  and  wider,  until  the  two  types  of  doc- 
trine irreconcilably  diverged  ?  Did  not  the  primi- 
tive Nazarenism,  or  Ebionism,  develop  into  the 
Nazarenism,  and  Ebionism,  and  Elkasaitism  of 
later  ages,  and  finally  die  out  in  obscurity  and 
condemnation,  as  damnable  heresy ;  while  the 
younger  doctrine  throve  and  pushed  out  its  shoots 
into  that  endless  variety  of  sects,  of  which  the  three 
strongest  survivors  are  the  Roman  and  Greek 
Churches  and  modern  Protestantism  ? 

Singular  state  of  things  !  If  I  were  to  profess 
the  doctrine  which  was  held  by  "James,  the 
brother  of  the  Lord,"  and  by  every  one  of  the 
"  myriads "  of  his  followers  and  co-religionists  in 
Jerusalem  up  to  twenty  or  thirty  years  after  the 
Crucifixion  (and  one  knows  not  how  much  later  at 
Pella),  I  should  be  condemned,  with  unanimity,  as 
an  ebionising  heretic  by  the  Roman,  Greek,  and 


232  AGNOSTICISM  Til 

Protestant  Churches  !  And,  probably,  this  hearty 
and  unanimous  condemnation  of  the  creed,  held  by 
those  who  were  in  the  closest  personal  relation 
with  their  Lord,  is  almost  the  only  point  upon 
which  they  would  be  cordially  of  one  mind.  On 
the  other  hand,  though  I  hardly  dare  imagine 
such  a  thing,  I  very  much  fear  that  the  "  pillars  " 
of  the  primitive  Hierosolymitan  Church  would 
have  considered  Dr.  Wace  an  infidel.  No  one  can 
read  the  famous  second  chapter  of  Galatians  and 
the  book  of  Revelation  without  seeing  how  nar- 
row was  even  Paul's  escape  from  a  similar  fate. 
And,  if  ecclesiastical  history  is  to  be  trusted,  the 
thirty-nine  articles,  be  they  right  or  wrong, 
diverge  from  the  primitive  doctrine  of  the  Naza- 
renes  vastly  more  than  even  Pauline  Christianity 
did. 

But,  further  than  this,  I  have  great  difficulty 
in  assuring  myself  that  even  James,  "the  brother 
of  the  Lord,"  and  his  "myriads"  of  Nazarenes, 
properly  represented  the  doctrines  of  their 
Master.  For  it  is  constantly  asserted  by  our 
modern  "  pillars  "  that  one  of  the  chief  features  of 
the  work  of  Jesus  was  the  instauration  of  Religion 
by  the  abolition  of  what  our  sticklers  for  articles 
and  liturgies,  with  unconscious  humour,  call  the 
narrow  restrictions  of  the  Law.  Yet,  if  James 
knew  this,  how  could  the  bitter  controversy  with 
Paul  have  arisen ;  and  why  did  not  one  or 
the  other  side  quote  any  of  the  various  sayings  of 


Til  AGNOSTICISM  233 

Jesus,  recorded  in  the  Gospels,  which  directly  bear 
on  the  question — sometimes,  apparently,  in  oppo- 
site directions  ? 

So,  if  I  am  asked  to  call  myself  an  "  infidel,"  I 
reply  :  To  what  doctrine  do  you  ask  me  to  be 
faithful  ?  Is  it  that  contained  in  the  Nicene  and 
the  Athanasian  Creeds  ?  My  firm  belief  is  that 
the  Nazarenes,  say  of  the  year  40,  headed  by 
James,  would  have  stopped  their  ears  and  thought 
worthy  of  stoning  the  audacious  man  who  pro- 
pounded it  to  them.  Is  it  contained  in  the  so- 
called  Apostles'  Creed  ?  I  am  pretty  sure  that  even 
that  would  have  created  a  recakitrant  commotion 
at  Pella  in  the  year  70,  among  the  Nazarenes  of 
Jerusalem,  who  had  fled  from  the  soldiers  of  Titus. 
And  yet,  if  the  unadulterated  tradition  of  the 
teachings  of  "  the  Nazarene "  were  to  be  found 
anywhere,  it  surely  should  have  been  amidst  those 
not  very  aged  disciples  who  may  have  heard  them 
as  they  were  delivered. 

Therefore,  however  sorry  I  may  be  to  be  unable 
to  demonstrate  that,  if  necessary,  I  should  not  be 
afraid  to  call  myself  an  "  infidel,"  I  cannot  do  it. 
"  Infidel "  is  a  term  of  reproach,  which  Christians 
and  Mahommedans,  in  their  modesty,  agree  to 
apply  to  those  who  differ  from  them.  If  he  had 
only  thought  of  it,  Dr.  Wace  might  have  used  the 
term  "  miscreant,"  which,  with  the  same  etymo- 
logical signification,  has  the  advantage  of  being 
still  more  "  unpleasant "  to  the  persons  to  whom 


234  AGNOSTICISM  vil 

it  is  applied.  But  why  should  a  man  be  expected 
to  call  himself  a  "  miscreant "  or  an  "  infidel  "  ? 
That  St.  Patrick  "had  two  birthdays  because  he 
was  a  twin  "  is  a  reasonable  and  intelligible  utter- 
ance beside  that  of  the  man  who  should  declare 
himself  to  be  an  infidel,  on  the  ground  of  denying 
his  own  belief.  It  may  be  logically,  if  not  ethi- 
cally, defensible  that  a  Christian  should  call  a 
Mahommedan  an  infidel  and  vice  versd ;  but,  on 
Dr.  Wace's  principles,  both  ought  to  call  them- 
selves infidels,  because  each  applies  the  term  to 
the  other. 

Now  I  am  afraid  that  all  the  Mahommedan  world 
would  agree  in  reciprocating  that  appellation  to 
Dr.  Wa'ce  himself.  I  once  visited  the  Hazar 
Mosque,  the  great  University  of  Mahommedanism, 
in  Cairo,  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  I  was  un- 
provided with  proper  authority.  A  swarm  of 
angry  undergraduates,  as  I  suppose  I  ought  to 
call  them,  came  buzzing  about  me  and  my  guide  ; 
and  if  I  had  known  Arabic,  I  suspect  that  "  dog 
of  an  infidel "  would  have  been  by  no  means  the 
most  "  unpleasant  "  of  the  epithets  showered  upon 
me,  before  I  could  explain  and  apologise  for  the 
mistake.  If  I  had  had  the  pleasure  of  Dr.  Wace's 
company  on  that  occasion,  the  undiscriminative 
followers  of  the  Prophet  would,  I  am  afraid,  have 
made  no  difference  between  us ;  not  even  if  they 
had  known  that  he  was  the  head  of  an  orthodox 
Christian  seminary.     And  I  have  not  the  smallest 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  235 


doubt  that  even  one  of  the  learned  mollahs,  if 
his  grave  courtesy  would  have  permitted  him  to 
say  anything  offensive  to  men  of  another  mode  of 
belief,  would  have  told  us  that  he  wondered  we 
did  not  find  it  "  very  unpleasant  "  to  disbelieve  in 
the  Prophet  of  Islam. 

From  what  precedes,  I  think  it  becomes  suffi- 
ciently clear  that  Dr.  Wace's  account  of  the  origin 
of  the  name  of  "  Agnostic  "  is  quite  wrong.  In- 
deed, I  am  bound  to  add  that  very  slight  effort  to 
discover  the  truth  would  have  convinced  him  that, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  term  arose  otherwise.  I 
am  loath  to  go  over  an  old  story  once  more  ;  but 
more  than  one  object  which  I  have  in  view  will  be 
served  by  telling  it  a  little  more  fully  than  it  has 
yet  been  told. 

Looking  back  nearly  fifty  years,  I  see  myself  as 
a  boy,  whose  education  has  been  interrupted,  and 
who,  intellectually,  was  left,  for  some  years,  alto- 
gether to  his  own  devices.  At  that  time,  I  was  a 
voracious  and  omnivorous  reader ;  a  dreamer  and 
speculator  of  the  first  water,  well  endowed  with 
that  splendid  courage  in  attacking  any  and  every 
subject,  which  is  the  blessed  compensation  of 
youth  and  inexperience.  Among  the  books  and 
essays,  on  all  sorts  of  topics  from  metaphysics  to 
heraldry,  which  I  read  at  this  time,  two  left  indel- 
ible impressions  on  my  mind.  One  was  Guizot's 
"  History  of  Civilisation,"  the  other  was  Sir 
William  Hamilton's  essay  "  On  the  Philosophy  of 


236  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


the  Unconditioned,"  which  I  came  upon,  by 
chance,  in  an  odd  volume  of  the  "  Edinburgh 
Review."  The  latter  was  certainly  strange  reading 
for  a  boy,  and  I  could  not  possibly  have  under- 
stood a  great  deal  of  it ; x  nevertheless,  I  devoured 
it  with  avidity,  and  it  stamped  upon  my  mind  the 
strong  conviction  that,  on  even  the  most  solemn 
and  important  of  questions,  men  are  apt  to  take 
cunning  phrases  for  answers  ;  and  that  the  limita- 
tion of  our  faculties,  in  a  great  number  of  cases, 
renders  real  answers  to  such  questions,  not  merely 
actually  impossible,  but  theoretically  inconceiv- 
able. 

Philosophy  and  history  having  laid  hold  of  me 
in  this  eccentric  fashion,  have  never  loosened  their 
grip.  I  have  no  pretension  to  be  an  expert  in 
either  subject ;  but  the  turn  for  philosophical  and 
historical  reading,  which  rendered  Hamilton  and 
Guizot  attractive  to  me,  has  not  only  filled  many 
lawful  leisure  hours,  and  still  more  sleepless  ones, 
with  the  repose  of  changed  mental  occupation,  but 
has  not  unfrequently  disputed  my  proper  work -time 
with  my  liege  lady,  N  atural  Science.  In  this  way 
I  have  found  it  possible  to  cover  a  good  deal  of 
ground  in  the  territory  of  philosophy ;  and  all  the 
more  easily  that  I  have  never  cared  much  about  A's 


1  Yet  I  must  somehow  have  laid  hold  of  the  pith  of  the 
matter,  for,  many  years  afterwards,  when  Dean  Mansel's 
Bampton  Lectures  were  published,  it  seemed  to  me  I  already 
knew  all  that  this  eminently  agnostic  thinker  had  to  tell  me. 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  237 


or  B's  opinion's,  but  have  rather  sought  to  know 
what  answer  he  had  to  give  to  the  questions  I  had 
to  put  to  him — that  of  the  limitation  of  possible 
knowledge  being  the  chief.  The  ordinary  exam- 
iner, with  his  "  State  the  views  of  So-and-so," 
would  have  floored  me  at  any  time.  If  he  had 
said  what  do  you  think  about  any  given  problem, 
I  might  have  got  on  fairly  well. 

The  reader  who  has  had  the  patience  to  follow 
the  enforced,  but  unwilling,  egotism  of  this 
veritable  history  (especially  if  his  studies  have  led 
him  in  the  same  direction),  will  now  see  why  my 
mind  steadily  gravitated  towards  the  conclusions 
of  Hume  and  Kant,  so  well  stated  by  the 
latter  in  a  sentence,  which  I  have  quoted  else- 
where. 

"  The  greatest  and  perhaps  the  sole  use  of  all 
philosophy  of  pure  reason  is,  after  all,  merely 
negative,  since  it  serves  not  as  an  organon  for  the 
enlargement  [of  knowledge],  but  as  a  discipline  for 
its  delimitation;  and,  instead  of  discovering 
truth,  has  only  the  modest  merit  of  preventing 
error.    x 

When  I  reached  intellectual  maturity  and 
began  to  ask  myself  whether  I  was  an  atheist,  a 
theist,  or  a  pantheist ;  a  materialist  or  an  idealist ; 
a  Christian  or  a  freethinker ;  I  found  that  the 
more  I  learned  and  reflected,  the  less  ready  was 
the  answer ;  until,  at  last,  I  came  to  the  conclu- 

1  Kritik  der  rcinen  Vernunft.     Edit.  Hartenstein,  p.  256. 


238  AGNOSTICISM  vil 

sion  that  I  had  neither  art  nor  part  with  any  of 
these  denominations,  except  the  last.  The  one 
thing  in  which  most  of  these  good  people  were 
agreed  was  the  one  thing  in  which  I  differed  from 
them.  They  were  quite  sure  they  had  attained  a 
certain  "  gnosis," — had,  more  or  less  successfully, 
solved  the  problem  of  existence;  while  I  was 
quite  sure  I  had  not,  and  had  a  pretty  strong 
conviction  that  the  problem  was  insoluble.  And, 
with  Hume  and  Kant  on  my  side,  I  could  not 
think  myself  presumptuous  in  holding  fast  by  that 
opinion.     Like  Dante, 

Nel  mezzo  del  cammin  di  nostra  vita 
Mi  ritrovai  per  una  selva  oscura, 

but,  unlike  Dante,  I  cannot  add, 

Che  la  diritta  via  era  smarrita. 

Ou  the  contrary,  I  had,  and  have,  the  firmest 
conviction  that  I  never  left  the  "  verace  via  " — the 
straight  road  ;  and  that  this  road  led  nowhere  else 
but  into  the  dark  depths  of  a  wild  and  tangled 
forest.  And  though  I  have  found  leopards  and 
lions  in  the  path  ;  though  I  have  made  abundant 
acquaintance  with  the  hungry  wTolf,  that  "  with 
privy  paw  devours  apace  and  nothing  said,"  as 
another  great  poet  says  of  the  ravening  beast ;  and 
though  no  friendly  spectre  has  even  yet  offered  his 
guidance,  I  was,  and  am,  minded  to  go  straight  on, 
until  I  either  come  out  on  the  other  side  of  the 


vn  AGNOSTICISM  239 

wood,  or  find  there  is  no  other  side  to  it,  at  least, 
none  attainable  by  me. 

This  was  my  situation  when  I  had  the  good 
fortune  to  find  a  place  among  the  members  of  that 
remarkable  confraternity  of  antagonists,  long  since 
deceased,  but  of  green  and  pious  memory,  the  Meta- 
physicial  Society.  Every  variety  of  philosophical 
and  theological  opinion  was  represented  there,  and 
expressed  itself  with  entire  openness  ;  most  of  my 
colleages  were  -ists  of  one  sort  or  another ;  and, 
however  kind  and  friendly  they  might  be,  I,  the 
man  without  a  rag  of  a  label  to  cover  himself  with, 
could  not  fail  to  have  some  of  the  uneasy  feelings 
which  must  have  beset  the  historical  fox  when, 
after  leaving  the  trap  in  which  his  tail  remained, 
he  presented  himself  to  his  normally  elongated 
companions.  So  I  took  thought,  and  invented 
what  I  conceived  to  be  the  appropriate  title  of 
"  agnostic."  It  came  into  my  head  as  suggestively 
antithetic  to  the  "  gnostic  "  of  Church  history,  who 
professed  to  know  so  much  about  the  very  things 
of  which  I  was  ignorant ;  and  I  took  the  earliest 
opportunity  of  parading  it  at  our  Society,  to  show 
that  I,  too,  had  a  tail,  like  the  other  foxes.  To 
my  great  satisfaction,  the  term  took;  and  when 
the  Spectator  had  stood  godfather  to  it,  any 
suspicion  in  the  minds  of  respectable  people,  that 
a  knowledge  of  its  parentage  might  have  awakened 
was,  of  course,  completely  lulled. 

That  is  the  history  of  the  origin  of  the  terms 
131 


240  AGNOSTICISM  vil 

"  agnostic "  and  "agnosticism "  ;  and  it  will  be  ob- 
served that  it  does  not  quite  agree  with  the  confi- 
dent assertion  of  the  reverend  Principal  of  King's 
College,  that  "  the  adoption  of  the  term  agnostic  is 
only  an  attempt  to  shift  the  issue,  and  that  it  in- 
volves a  mere  evasion  "  in  relation  to  the  Church 
and  Christianity.1 

The  last  objection  (I  rejoice  as  much  as  my 
readers  must  do,  that  it  is  the  last)  which  I  have 
to  take  to  Dr.  Wace's  deliverance  before  the  Church 
Congress  arises,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  on  a  question  of 
morality. 

"  It  is,  and  it  ought  to  be,"  authoritatively  de- 
clares this  official  representative  of  Christian 
ethics,  "  an  unpleasant  thing  for  a  man  to  have 
to  say  plainly  that  he  does  not  believe  in  Jesus 
Christ "  (I.  c.  p.  254). 

Whether  it  is  so  depends,  I  imagine,  a  good  deal 
on  whether  the  man  was  brought  up  in  a  Christian 
household  or  not.  I  do  not  see  why  it  should  be 
"  unpleasant "  for  a  Mahommedan  or  Buddhist  to 
say  so.  But  that  "  it  ought  to  be  "  unpleasant  for 
any  man  to  say  anything  which  he  sincerely,  and 
after  due  deliberation,  believes,  is,  to  my  mind,  a 
proposition  of  the  most  profoundly  immoral 
character.  I  verily  believe  that  the  great  good 
which  has  been  effected  in  the  world  by  Christian- 
ity has  been  largely  counteracted  by  the  pestilent 
1  Report  of  the  Church  Congress,  Manchester,  1888,  p.  252. 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  241 


doctrine  on  which  all  the  Churches  have  insisted, 
that  honest  disbelief  in  their  more  or  less  astonish- 
ing creeds  is  a  moral  offence,  indeed  a  sin  of  the 
deepest  dye,  deserving  and  involving  the  same 
future  retribution  as  murder  and  robbery.  If  we 
could  only  see,  in  one  view,  the  torrents  of  hypoc- 
risy and  cruelty,  the  lies,  the  slaughter,  the  viola- 
tions of  every  obligation  of  humanity,  which  have 
flowed  from  this  source  along  the  course  of  the 
history  of  Christian  nations,  our  worst  imaginations 
of  Hell  would  pale  beside  the  vision. 

A  thousand  times,  no  !  It  ought  not  to  be  un- 
pleasant to  say  that  which  one  honestly  believes  or 
disbelieves.  That  it  so  constantly  is  painful  to  do 
so,  is  quite  enough  obstacle  to  the  progress  of  man- 
kind in  that  most  valuable  of  all  qualities,  honesty 
of  word  or  of  deed,  without  erecting  a  sad  con- 
comitant of  human  weakness  into  something  to  be 
admired  and  cherished.  The  bravest  of  soldiers 
often,  and  very  naturally,  "  feel  it  unpleasant  "  to 
go  into  action ;  but  a  court-martial  which  did  its 
duty  would  make  short  work  of  the  officer  who 
promulgated  the  doctrine  that  his  men  ought  to  feel 
their  duty  unpleasant. 

I  am  very  well  aware,  as  I  suppose  most 
thoughtful  people  are  in  these  times,  that  the 
process  of  breaking  away  from  old  beliefs  is  ex- 
tremely unpleasant ;  and  I  am  much  disposed  to 
think  that  the  encouragement,  the  consolation,  and 
the  peace  afforded  to  earnest  believers  in  even  the 


242  AGNOSTICISM  vil 

worst  forms  of  Christianity  are  of  great  practical 
advantage  to  them.     What  deductions  must  be 
made  from  this  gain  on  the  score  of  the  harm  done 
to  the  citizen  by  the  ascetic  other-worldliness  of 
logical  Christianity ;  to  the  ruler,  by  the  hatred, 
malice,    and    all    uncharitableness    of    sectarian 
bigotry ;  to  the  legislator,  by  the  spirit   of  exclu- 
siveness  and  domination  of  those  that  count  them- 
selves pillars  of  orthodoxy  ;  to  the  philosopher,  by 
the    restraints  on  the  freedom  of   learning    and 
teaching  which  every  Church  exercises,  when  it  is 
strong  enough ;  to  the  conscientious  soul,  by  the 
introspective  hunting  after  sins  of  the  mint  and 
cummin  type,  the  fear  of  theological  error,  and  the 
overpowering  terror  of  possible  damnation,  which 
have  accompanied  the  Churches  like  their  shadow, 
I  need  not  now  consider ;  but  they  are  assuredly 
not  small.     If  agnostics  lose  heavily  on  the  one 
side,  they  gain  a  good  deal  on  the  other.     People 
who  talk  about  the  comforts  of  belief  appear  to 
forget  its  discomforts  ;    they  ignore  the  fact  that 
the  Christianity  of   the   Churches   is    something 
more  than  faith  in  the  ideal  personality  of  Jesus, 
which  they  create  for  themselves,  plus  so  much  as 
can  be  carried  into  practice,  without  disorganising 
civil  society,  of  the  maxims  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.    Trip  in  morals  or  in  doctrine  (especially  in 
doctrine),  without  due  repentance  or  retractation, 
or  fail  to  get  properly  baptized  before  you  die,  and 
a  plebiscite  of  the  Christians  of  Europe,  if  they 


VII  AGNOSTICISM  243 

were  true  to  their  creeds,  would  affirm  your 
everlasting  damnation  by  an  immense  majority. 

Preachers,  orthodox  and  heterodox,  din  into  our 
ears  that  the  world  cannot  get  on  without  faith  of 
some  sort.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  that  is  as 
eminently  as  obviously  true ;  there  is  another,  in 
which,  in  my  judgment,  it  is  as  eminently  as 
obviously  false,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
hortatory,  or  pulpit,  mind  is  apt  to  oscillate 
between  the  false  and  the  true  meanings,  without 
being  aware  of  the  fact. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  ground  of  every  one  of 
our  actions,  and  the  validity  of  all  our  reasonings, 
rest  upon  the  great  act  of  faith,  which  leads  us  to 
take  the  experience  of  the  past  as  a  safe  guide  in 
our  dealings  with  the  present  and  the  future. 
From  the  nature  of  ratiocination,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  axioms,  on  which  it  is  based,  cannot  be  demon- 
strated by  ratiocination.  It  is  also  a  trite  obser- 
vation that,  in  the  business  of  life,  we  constantly 
take  the  most  serious  action  upon  evidence  of  an 
utterly  insufficient  character.  But  it  is  surely 
plain  that  faith  is  not  necessarily  entitled  to 
dispense  with  ratiocination  because  ratiocination 
cannot  dispense  with  faith  as  a  starting-point ; 
and  that  because  we  are  often  obliged,  by  the 
pressure  of  events,  to  act  on  very  bad  evidence,  it 
does  not  follow  that  it  is  proper  to  act  on  such 
evidence  when  the  pressure  is  absent. 

The  writer  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  tells 


244  AGNOSTICISM  vil 

us  that  "faith  is  the  assurance  of  things  hoped 
for,  the  proving  of  things  not  seen/'  In  the 
authorised  version,  "  substance "  stands  for 
"  assurance,"  and  "  evidence "  for  "  proving." 
The  question  of  the  exact  meaning  of  the  two 
words,  viroaracrK;  and  eXey^o^,  affords  a  fine  field 
of  discussion  for  the  scholar  and  the  metaphysician. 
But  I  fancy  we  shall  be  not  far  from  the  mark  if 
we  take  the  writer  to  have  had  in  his  mind  the 
profound  psychological  truth,  that  men  constantly 
feel  certain  about  things  for  which  they  strongly 
hope,  but  have  no  evidence,  in  the  legal  or  logical 
sense  of  the  word ;  and  he  calls  this  feeling 
"  faith."  I  may  have  the  most  absolute  faith  that 
a  friend  has  not  committed  the  crime  of  which  he 
is  accused.  In  the  early  days  of  English  history, 
if  my  friend  could  have  obtained  a  few  more 
compurgators  of  a  like  robust  faith,  he  would  have 
been  acquitted.  At  the  present  day,  if  I  tendered 
myself  as  a  witness  on  that  score,  the  judge  would 
tell  me  to  stand  down,  and  the  youngest  barrister 
would  smile  at  my  simplicity.  Miserable  indeed 
is  the  man  who  has  not  such  faith  in  some  of  his 
fellow-men — only  less  miserable  than  the  man 
who  allows  himself  to  forget  that  such  faith  is  not, 
strictly  speaking,  evidence ;  and  when  his  faith  is 
disappointed,  as  will  happen  now  and  again,  turns 
Timon  and  blames  the  universe  for  his  own 
blunders.  And  so,  if  a  man  can  find  a  friend,  the 
hypostasis    of  all  his  hopes,  the   mirror  of    his 


VII  AGNOSTICISM  245 

ethical  ideal,  in  the  Jesus  of  any,  or  all,  of  the 
Gospels,  ]et  him  live  by  faith  in  that  ideal.  Who 
shall  or  can  forbid  him  ?  But  let  him  not  delude 
himself  with  the  notion  that  his  faith  is  evidence 
of  the  objective  reality  of  that  in  which  he  trusts. 
Such  evidence  is  to  be  obtained  only  by  the  use 
of  the  methods  of  science,  as  applied  to  history 
and  to  literature,  and  it  amounts  at  present  to 
very  little. 

It  appears  that  Mr.  Gladstone  some  time  ago 
asked  Mr.  Laing  if  he  could  draw  up  a  short 
summary  of  the  negative  creed  ;  a  body  of 
negative  propositions,  which  have  so  far  been 
adopted  on  the  negative  side  as  to  be  what  the 
Apostles'  and  other  accepted  creeds  are  on  the 
positive ;  and  Mr.  Laing  at  once  kindly  obliged 
Mr.  Gladstone  with  the  desired  articles — eight  of 
them. 

If  any  one  had  preferred  this  request  to  me, 
I  should  have  replied  that,  if  he  referred  to  ag- 
nostics, they  have  no  creed  ;  and,  by  the  nature  of 
the  case,  cannot  have  any.  Agnosticism,  in  fact, 
is  not  a  creed,  but  a  method,  the  essence  of  which 
lies  in  the  rigorous  application  of  a  single  principle. 
That  principle  is  of  great  antiquity ;  it  is  as  old  as 
Socrates ;  as  old  as  the  writer  who  said,  "  Try  all 
things,  hold  fast  by  that  which  is  good  ; "  it  is  the 
foundation  of  the  Reformation,  which  simply  illus- 
trated the  axiom  that  every  man  should  be  able 


546  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  him  ;  it  is 
the  great  principle  of  Descartes  ;  it  is  the  funda- 
mental axiom  of  modern  science.  Positively  the 
principle  may  be  expressed :  In  matters  of  the 
intellect,  follow  your  reason  as  far  as  it  will  take 
you,  without  regard  to  any  other  consideration. 
And  negatively  :  In  matters  of  the  intellect  do 
not  pretend  that  conclusions  are  certain  which  are 
not  demonstrated  or  demonstrable.  That  I  take 
to  be  the  agnostic  faith,  which  if  a  man  keep 
whole  and  undefiled,  he  shall  not  be  ashamed  to 
look  the  universe  in  the  face,  whatever  the  future 
may  have  in  store  for  him. 

The  results  of  the  working  out  of  the  agnostic 
principle  will  vary  according  to  individual  know- 
ledge and  capacity,  and  according  to  the  general 
condition  of  science.  That  which  is  unproven  to- 
day may  be  proven  by  the  help  of  new  discoveries 
to-morrow.  The  only  negative  fixed  points  will 
be  those  negations  which  flow  from  the  demon- 
strable limitation  of  our  faculties.  And  the  only 
obligation  accepted  is  to  have  the  mind  always 
open  to  conviction.  Agnostics  who  never  fail  in 
carrying  out  their  principles  are,  I  am  afraid,  as 
rare  as  other  people  of  whom  the  same  consistency 
can  be  truthfully  predicated.  But,  if  you  were  to 
meet  with  such  a  phoenix  and  to  tell  him  that  you 
had  discovered  that  two  and  two  make  five,  he 
would  patiently  ask  you  to  state  your  reasons  for 
that  conviction,    and    express    his   readiness  to 


til  AGNOSTICISM  247 

agree  with  you  if  he  found  them  satisfactory.  The 
apostolic  injunction  to  "  suffer  fools  gladly  "  should 
be  the  rule  of  life  of  a  true  agnostic.  I  am  deeply 
conscious  how  far  I  myself  fall  short  of  this  ideal, 
but  it  is  my  personal  conception  of  what  agnostics 
ought  to  be. 

However,  as  I  began  by  stating,  I  speak  only 
for  myself ;  and  I  do  not  dream  of  anathematizing 
and  excommunicating  Mr.  Laing.  But,  when  I 
consider  his  creed  and  compare  it  with  the 
Athanasian,  I  think  I  have  on  the  whole  a 
clearer  conception  of  the  meaning  of  the  latter. 
"  Polarity,"  in  Article  VIII.,  for  example,  is  a  word 
about  which  I  heard  a  good  deal  in  my  youth, 
when  "  Naturphilosophie "  was  in  fashion,  and 
greatly  did  I  suffer  from  it.  For  many  years  past^ 
whenever  I  have  met  with  "  polarity  "  anywhere 
but  in  a  discussion  of  some  purely  physical  topic, 
such  as  magnetism,  I  have  shut  the  book.  Mr. 
Laing  must  excuse  me  if  the  force  of  habit  was 
too  much  for  me  when  I  read  his  eighth  article. 

And  now,  what  is  to  be  said  to  Mr.  Harrisons 
remarkable  deliverance  "  On  the  future  of  acmos- 
ticism  "  ?  1  I  would  that  it  were  not  my  business 
to  say  anything,  for  I  am  afraid  I  can  say  nothing 
which  shall  manifest  my  great  personal  respect 
for  this  able  writer,  and  for  the  zeal  and  energy 
with  which  he  ever  and  anon  galvanises  the 
1  Fortnightly  Review,  Jan.  1889. 


248  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


weakly  frame  of  Positivism  until  it  looks,  more 
than  ever,  like  John  Bunyan's  Pope  and  Pagan 
rolled  into  one.  There  is  a  story  often  repeated, 
and  I  am  afraid  none  the  less  mythical  on  that 
account,  of  a  valiant  and  loud-voiced  corporal  in 
command  of  two  full  privates  who,  falling  in  with 
a  regiment  of  the  enemy  in  the  dark,  orders  it  to 
surrender  under  pain  of  instant  annihilation  by 
his  force ;  and  the  enemy  surrenders  accordingly. 
I  am  always  reminded  of  this  tale  when  I  read 
the  positivist  commands  to  the  forces  of  Chris- 
tianity and  of  Science  ;  only  the  enemy  show  no 
more  signs  of  intending  to  obey  now  than  they 
have  done  any  time  these  forty  years. 

The  allocution  under  consideration  has  a 
certain  papal  flavour.  Mr.  Harrison  speaks 
with  authority  and  not  as  one  of  the  com- 
mon scribes  of  the  period.  He  knows  not  only 
what  agnosticism  is  and  how  it  has  come  about, 
but  what  will  become  of  it.  The  agnostic  is 
to  content  himself  with  being  the  precursor  of 
the  positivist.  In  his  place,  as  a  sort  of  navvy 
levelling  the  ground  and  cleansing  it  of  such 
poor  stuff  as  Christianity,  he  is  a  useful  creat- 
ure who  deserves  patting  on  the  back,  on  con- 
dition that  he  does  not  venture  beyond  his 
last.  But  let  not  these  scientific  Sanballats 
presume  that  they  are  good  enough  to  take  part 
in  the  building  of  the  Temple — they  are  mere 
Samaritans,  doomed  to  die  out  in  proportion  as 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  249 


the  Religion  of  Humanity  is  accepted  by  man- 
kind. Well,  if  that  is  their  fate,  they  have  time 
to  be  cheerful.  But  let  us  hear  Mr.  Harrison's 
pronouncement  of  their  doom.  * 

"Agnosticism  is  a  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
religion,  an  entirely  negative  stage,  the  point 
reached  by  physicists,  a  purely  mental  conclusion, 
with  no  relation  to  things  social  at  all"  (p.  154). 
I  am  quite  dazed  by  this  declaration.  Are  there, 
then,  any  "  conclusions "  that  are  not  "  purely 
mental "  ?  Is  there  "  no  relation  to  things  social " 
in  "  mental  conclusions "  which  affect  men's 
whole  conception  of  life  ?  Was  that  prince  of 
agnostics,  David  Hume,  particularly  imbued  with 
physical  science  ?  Supposing  physical  science 
to  be  non-existent,  would  not  the  agnostic 
principle,  applied  by  the  philologist  and  the 
historian,  lead  to  exactly  the  same  results  ?  Is 
the  modern  more  or  less  complete  suspension  of 
judgment  as  to  the  facts  of  the  history  of  regal 
Rome,  or  the  real  origin  of  the  Homeric  poems, 
anything  but  agnosticism  in  history  and  in 
literature  ?  And  if  so,  how  can  agnosticism  be 
the  "  mere  negation  of  the  physicist  "  ? 

"  Agnosticism  is  a  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
religion."  No  two  people  agree  as  to  what  is 
meant  by  the  term  "  religion  "  ;  but  if  it  means, 
as  I  think  it  ought  to  mean,  simply  the  reverence 
and  love  for  the  ethical  ideal,  and  the  desire  to 
realise  that  ideal  in  life,  which  every  man  ought 


250  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


to  feel — then  I  say  agnosticism  has  no  more  to  do 
with  it  than  it  has  to  do  with  music  or  painting. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Harrison,  like  most 
people,  means  by  "  religion  "  theology,  then,  in  my 
judgment,  agnosticism  can  be  said  to  be  a  stage  in 
its  evolution,  only  as  death  may  be  said  to  be 
the  final  stage  in  the  evolution  of  life. 

When  agnostic  logic  is  simply  one  of  the  canons  of  thought, 
agnosticism,  as  a  distinctive  faith,  will  have  spontaneously 
disappeared  (p.  155). 

I  can  but  marvel  that  such  sentences  as  this, 
and  those  already  quoted,  should  have  proceeded 
from  Mr.  Harrison's  pen.  Does  he  really  mean  to 
suggest  that  agnostics  have  a  logic  peculiar  to 
themselves  ?  Will  he  kindly  help  me  out  of  my 
bewilderment  when  I  try  to  think  of  "logic" 
being  anything  else  than  the  canon  (which,  I 
believe,  means  rule)  of  thought  ?  As  to  agnos- 
ticism being  a  distinctive  faith,  I  have  already 
shown  that  it  cannot  possibly  be  anything  of  the 
kind,  unless  perfect  faith  in  logic  is  distinctive  of 
agnostics  ;  which,  after  all,  it  may  be. 

Agnosticism  as  a  religious  philosophy  per  se  rests  on  an  almost 
total  ignoring  of  history  and  social  evolution  (p.  152). 

But  neither  per  se  nor  per  aliud  has  agnosticism 
(if  I  know  anything  about  it)  the  least  pretension 
to  be  a  religious  philosophy ;  so  far  from  resting 
on  ignorance  of  history,  and  that  social  evolution 


vn  AGNOSTICISM  251 

of  which  history  is  the  account,  it  is  and  has 
been  the  inevitable  result  of  the  strict  adherence 
to  scientific  methods  by  historical  investigators. 
Our  forefathers  were  quite  confident  about  the 
existence  of  Romulus  and  Remus,  of  King  Arthur, 
and  of  Hengist  and  Horsa.  Most  of  us  have 
become  agnostics  in  regard  to  the  reality  of  these 
worthies.  It  is  a  matter  of  notoriety  of  which 
Mr.  Harrison,  who  accuses  us  all  so  freely  of 
ignoring  history,  should  not  be  ignorant,  that  the 
critical  process  which  has  shattered  the  founda- 
tions of  orthodox  Christian  doctrine  owes  its 
origin,  not  to  the  devotees  of  physical  science,  but, 
before  all,  to  Richard  Simon,  the  learned  French 
Oratorian,  just  two  hundred  years  ago.  I  cannot 
find  evidence  that  either  Simon,  or  any  one  of  the 
great  scholars  and  critics  of  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries  who  have  continued  Simon's 
work,  had  any  particular  acquaintance  with 
physical  science.  I  have  already  pointed  out 
that  Hume  was  independent  of  it.  And  certainly 
one  of  the  most  potent  influences  in  the  same 
direction,  upon  history  in  the  present  century,  that 
of  Grote,  did  not  come  from  the  physical  side. 
Physical  science,  in  fact,  has  had  nothing  directly 
to  do  with  the  criticism  of  the  Gospels ;  it  is 
wholly  incompetent  to  furnish  demonstrative 
evidence  that  any  statement  made  in  these  his- 
tories is  untrue.  Indeed,  modern  physiology  can 
find  parallels  in  nature  for  events  of  apparently 


252  AGNOSTICISM  vn 

the    most  eminently  supernatural  kind  recount- 
ed in  some  of  those  histories. 

It  is  a  comfort  to  hear,  upon  Mr.  Harrison's 
authority,  that  the  laws  of  physical  nature  show 
no  signs  of  becoming  "  less  definite,  less  consistent, 
or  less  popular  as  time  goes  on"  (p.  154).  How  a 
law  of  nature  is  to  become  indefinite,  or  "  incon- 
sistent," passes  my  poor  powers  of  imagination. 
But  with  universal  suffrage  and  the  coach-dog; 
theory  of  premiership  in  full  view ;  the  theory,  I 
mean,  that  the  whole  duty  of  a  political  chief  is 
to  look  sharp  for  the  way  the  social  coach  is 
driving,  and  then  run  in  front  and  bark  loud — as 
if  being  the  leading  noise -maker  and  guiding 
were  the  same  things — it  is  truly  satisfactory  to 
me  to  know  that  the  laws  of  nature  are  increasing 
in  popularity.  Looking  at  recent  developments 
of  the  policy  which  is  said  to  express  the  great 
heart  of  the  people,  I  have  had  my  doubts  of  the 
fact ;  and  my  love  for  my  fellow-countrymen  has 
led  me  to  reflect,  with  dread,  on  what  will  happen 
to  them,  if  any  of  the  laws  of  nature  ever  become 
so  unpopular  in  their  eyes,  as  to  be  voted  down  by 
the  transcendent  authority  of  universal  suffrage. 
If  the  legion  of  demons,  before  they  set  out  on 
their  journey  in  the  swine,  had  had  time  to  hold 
a  meeting  and  to  resolve  unanimously  "That  the 
law  of  gravitation  is  oppressive  and  ought  to  be 
repealed,"  I  am  afraid  it  would  have  made  no 
sort  of  difference  to  the  result,  when  their  two 


VII  AGNOSTICISM  253 

thousand  unwilling  porters  were  once  launched 
down  the  steep  slopes  of  the  fatal  shore  of 
Gennesaret. 

The  question  of  the  place  of  religion  as  an  element  of  human 
nature,  as  a  force  of  human  society,  its  origin,  analysis,  and 
functions,  has  never  been  considered  at  all  from  an  agnostic 
point  of  view  (p.  152). 

I  doubt  not  that  Mr.  Harrison  knows  vastly 
more  about  history  than  I  do ;  in  fact,  he  tells  the 
public  that  some  of  my  friends  and  I  have  had 
no  opportunity  of  occupying  ourselves  with  that 
subject.  I  do  not  like  to  contradict  any  state- 
ment which  Mr.  Harrison  makes  on  his  own 
authority ;  only,  if  I  may  be  true  to  my  agnostic 
principles,  I  humbly  ask  how  he  has  obtained 
assurance  on  this  head.  I  do  not  profess  to  know 
anything  about  the  range  of  Mr.  Harrison's 
studies ;  but  as  he  has  thought  it  fitting  to  start 
the  subject,  I  may  venture  to  point  out  that,  on 
evidence  adduced,  it  might  be  equally  permis- 
sible to  draw  the  conclusion  that  Mr.  Harrison's 
other  labours  have  not  allowed  him  to  acquire 
that  acquaintance  with  the  methods  and  results 
of  physical  science,  or  with  the  history  of  philo- 
sophy, or  of  philological  and  historical  criticism, 
which  is  essential  to  any  one  who  desires  to 
obtain  a  right  understanding  of  agnosticism. 
Incompetence  in  philosophy,  and  in  all  branches 
of  science  except  mathematics,  is  the  well-known 


254  AGNOSTICISM 


VII 


mental  characteristic  of  the  founder  of  positivism. 
Faithfulness  in  disciples  is  an  admirable  quality 
in  itself;  the  pity  is  that  it  not  unfrequently  leads 
to  the  imitation  of  the  weaknesses  as  well  as  of 
the  strength  of  the  master.  It  is  only  such 
over-faithfulness  which  can  account  for  a  "strong- 
mind  really  saturated  with  the  historical  sense " 
(p.  153)  exhibiting  the  extraordinary  forgetfulness 
of  the  historical  fact  of  the  existence  of  David 
Hume  implied  by  the  assertion  that 

it  would  be  difficult  to  name  a  single  known  agnostic  who  has 
given  to  history  anything  like  the  amount  of  thought  and  study 
which  he  brings  to  a  knowledge  of  the  physical  world  (p.  153). 

Whoso  calls  to  mind  what  I  may  venture  to 
term  the  bright  side  of  Christianity — that  ideal  of 
manhood,  with  its  strength  and  its  patience,  its 
justice  and  its  pity  for  human  frailty,  its  helpful- 
ness to  the  extremity  of  self-sacrifice,  its  ethical 
purity  and  nobility,  which  apostles  have  pictured, 
in  which  armies  of  martyrs  have  placed  their 
unshakable  faith,  and  whence  obscure  men  and 
women,  like  Catherine  of  Sienna  and  John  Knox, 
have  derived  the  courage  to  rebuke  popes  and 
kings — is  not  likely  to  underrate  the  importance 
of  the  Christian  faith  as  a  factor  in  human 
history,  or  to  doubt  that  if  that  faith  should  prove 
to  be  incompatible  with  our  knowledge,  or  neces- 
sary want  of  knowledge,  some  other  hypostasis  of 
men's  hopes,  genuine  enough  and  worthy  enough 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  255 


to  replace  it,  will  arise.  But  that  the  incongruous 
mixture  of  bad  science  with  eviscerated  papistry, 
out  of  which  Cornte  manufactured  the  positivist 
religion,  will  be  the  heir  of  the  Christian  ages, 
I  have  too  much  respect  for  the  humanity  of  the 
future  to  believe.  Charles  the  Second  told  his 
brother,  "  They  will  not  kill  me,  James,  to  make 
you  king."  And  if  critical  science  is  remorselessly 
destroying  the  historical  foundations  of  the  noblest 
ideal  of  humanity  which  mankind  have  yet  wor- 
shipped, it  is  little  likely  to  permit  the  pitiful 
reality  to  climb  into  the  vacant  shrine. 

That  a  man  should  determine  to  devote  him- 
self to  the  service  of  humanity — including 
intellectual  and  moral  self-culture  under  that 
name ;  that  this  should  be,  in  the  proper  sense  of 
the  word,  his  religion — is  not  only  an  intelligible, 
but,  I  think,  a  laudable  resolution.  And  I  am 
reatly  disposed  to  believe  that  it  is  the  only 
religion  which  will  prove  itself  to  be  unassailably 
acceptable  so  long  as  the  human  race  endures. 
But  when  the  Comtist  asks  me  to  worship 
"  Humanity " — that  is  to  say,  to  adore  the 
generalised  conception  of  men  as  they  ever  have 
been  and  probably  ever  will  be — I  must  reply 
that  I  could  just  as  soon  bow  down  and  worship 
the  generalised  conception  of  a  "  wilderness  of 
apes."  Surely  we  are  not  going  back  to  the  days 
of  Paganism,  when  individual  men  were  deified, 
and  the  hard  good  sense  of  a  dying  Vespasian 

132 


256  AGNOSTICISM  vn 

could  prompt  the  bitter  jest,  "Ut  puto  Dens  no." 
No  divinity  doth  hedge  a  modern  man,  be  he 
even  a  sovereign  ruler.  Nor  is  there  any  one, 
except  a  municipal  magistrate,  who  is  officially 
declared  worshipful.  But  if  there  is  no  spark  of 
worship-worthy  divinity  in  the  individual  twigs 
of  humanity,  whence  comes  that  godlike  splen- 
dour which  the  Moses  of  Positivism  fondly 
imagines  to  pervade  the  whole  bush  ? 

I  know  no  study  which  is  so  unutterably  sad- 
dening as  that  of  the  evolution  of  humanity,  as  it 
is  set  forth  in  the  annals  of  history.  Out  of  the 
darkness  of  prehistoric  ages  man  emerges  with  the 
marks  of  his  lowly  origin  strong  upon  him.  He 
is  a  brute,  only  more  intelligent  than  the  other 
brutes,  a  blind  prey  to  impulses,  which  as  often 
as  not  lead  him  to  destruction ;  a  victim  to 
endless  illusions,  which  make  his  mental  existence 
a  terror  and  a  burden,  and  fill  his  physical  life 
with  barren  toil  and  battle.  He  attains  a  certain 
degree  of  physical  comfort,  and  develops  a  more  or 
less  workable  theory  of  life,  in  such  favourable 
situations  as  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia  or  of 
Egypt,  and  then,  for  thousands  and  thousands  of 
years,  struggles,  with  varying  fortunes,  attended  by 
infinite  wickedness,  bloodshed,  and  misery,  to 
maintain  himself  at  this  point  against  the  greed 
and  the  ambition  of  his  fellow-men.  He  makes  a 
point  of  killing  and  otherwise  persecuting  all 
those  who  first  try  to  get  him  to  move  on ;    and 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  257 


when  he  has  moved  on  a  step,  foolishly  confers 
post-mortem  deification  on  his  victims.  He  ex- 
actly repeats  the  process  with  all  who  want  to 
move  a  step  yet  farther.  And  the  best  men  of 
the  best  epochs  are  simply  those  who  make  the 
fewest  blunders  and  commit  the  fewest  sins." 

That  one  should  rejoice  in  the  good  man, 
forgive  the  bad  man,  and  pity  and  help  all  men  to 
the  best  of  one's  ability,  is  surely  indisputable.  It 
is  the  glory  of  Judaism  and  of  Christianity  to  have 
proclaimed  this  truth,  through  all  their  aberra- 
tions. But  the  worship  of  a  God  who  needs 
forgiveness  and  help,  and  deserves  pity  every 
hour  of  his  existence,  is  no  better  than  that  of 
any  other  voluntarily  selected  fetish.  The 
Emperor  Julian's  project  was  hopeful  in  com- 
parison with  the  prospects  of  the  Comtist 
Anthropolatry. 

When  the  historian  of  religion  in  the  twentieth 
century  is  writing  about  the  nineteenth,  I  foresee 
he  will  say  something  of  this  kind  : 

The  most  curious  and  instructive  events  in  the 
religious  history  of  the  preceding  century  are  the 
rise  and  progress  of  two  new  sects  called  Mormons 
and  Positivists.  To  the  student  who  has  carefully 
considered  these  remarkable  phenomena  nothing 
in  the  records  of  religious  self-delusion  can  appear 
improbable. 

The  Mormons  arose  in  the  midst  of  the  great 


258  AGNOSTICISM  vn 

Republic,  which,  though  comparatively  insignifi- 
cant, at  that  time,  in  territory  as  in  the  number  of 
its  citizens,  was  (as  we  know  from  the  fragments 
of  the  speeches  of  its  orators  which  have  come 
down  to  us)  no  less  remarkable  for  the  native 
intelligence  of  its  population  than  for  the  wide 
extent  of  their  information,  owing  to  the  activity 
of  their  publishers  in  diffusing  all  that  they  could 
invent,  beg,  borrow,  or  steal.  Nor  were  they  less 
noted  for  their  perfect  freedom  from  all  restraints 
in  thought,  or  speech,  or  deed  ;  except,  to  be  sure, 
the  beneficent  and  wise  influence  of  the  majority, 
exerted,  in  case  of  need,  through  an  institution 
known  as  "  tarring  and  feathering,"  the  exact 
nature  of  which  is  now  disputed. 

There  is  a  complete  consensus  of  testimony  that 
the  founder  of  Mormonism,  one  Joseph  Smith,  was 
a  low-minded,  ignorant  scamp,  and  that  he  stole 
the  "  Scriptures  "  which  he  propounded  ;  not  being 
clever  enough  to  forge  even  such  contemptible  stuff 
as  they  contain.  Nevertheless  he  must  have  been 
a  man  of  some  force  of  character,  for  a  considerable 
number  of  disciples  soon  gathered  about  him.  In 
spite  of  repeated  outbursts  of  popular  hatred  and 
violence — during  one  of  which  persecutions  Smith 
was  brutally  murdered — the  Mormon  body  steadily 
increased,  and  became  a  flourishing  community. 
But  the  Mormon  practices  being  objectionable  to 
the  majority,  they  were,  more  than  once,  without 
any  pretence  of  law,  but  by  force  of  riot,  arson,  and 


VII 


AGNOSTICISM  259 


murder,  driven  away  from  the  land  they  had 
occupied.  Harried  by  these  persecutions,  the 
Mormon  body  eventually  committed  itself  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  a  desert  as  barren  as  that  of 
Sinai ;  and  after  terrible  sufferings  and  privations, 
reached  the  Oasis  of  Utah.  Here  it  grew  and 
nourished,  sending  out  missionaries  to,  and  receiv- 
ing converts  from,  all  parts  of  Europe,  sometimes 
to  the  number  of  10,000  in  a  year;  until,  in  1880, 
the  rich  and  nourishing  community  numbered 
110,000  souls  in  Utah  alone,  while  there  were 
probably  30,000  or  40,000  scattered  abroad  else- 
where. In  the  whole  history  of  religions  there  is 
no  more  remarkable  example  of  the  power  of  faith ; 
and,  in  this  case,  the  founder  of  that  faith  was 
indubitably  a  most  despicable  creature.  It  is 
interesting  to  observe  that  the  course  taken  by  the 
great  Republic  and  its  citizens  runs  exactlv  parallel 
with  that  taken  by  the  Roman  Empire  and  its 
citizens  towards  the  early  Christians,  except  that 
the  Romans  had  a  certain  legal  excuse  for  their 
acts  of  violence,  inasmuch  as  the  Christian 
"  sodalitia "  were  not  licensed,  and  consequently 
were,  ipso  facto,  illegal  assemblages.  Until,  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  United 
States  legislature  decreed  the  illegality  of  poly- 
gamy, the  Mormons  were  wholly  within  the  law. 
Nothing  can  present  a  greater  contrast  to  all 
this  than  the  history  of  the  Positivists.  This  sect 
arose  much  about  the  same  time  as  that  of  the 


20  0  AGNOSTICISM  vil 

Mormons,  in  the  upper  and  most  instructed 
stratum  of  the  quick-witted,  sceptical  population 
of  Paris.  The  founder,  Auguste  Comte,  was  a 
teacher  of  mathematics,  but  of  no  eminence  in 
that  department  of  knowledge,  and  with  nothing 
but  an  amateur's  acquaintance  with  physical, 
chemical,  and  biological  science.  His  works  are 
repulsive,  on  account  of  the  dull  diffuseness  of 
their  style,  and  a  certain  air,  as  of  a  superior 
person,  which  characterises  them ;  but  nevertheless 
they  contain  good  things  here  and  there.  It 
would  take  too  much  space  to  reproduce  in  detail 
a  system  which  proposes  to  regulate  all  human 
life  by  the  promulgation  of  a  Gentile  Leviticus. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  M.  Comte  may  be  described 
as  a  syncretic,  who,  like  the  Gnostics  of  early 
Church  history,  attempted  to  combine  the  sub- 
stance of  imperfectly  comprehended  contemporary 
science  with  the  form  of  Roman  Christianity.  It 
may  be  that  this  is  the  reason  why  his  disciples 
were  so  very  angry  with  some  obscure  people 
called  Agnostics,  whose  views,  if  we  may  judge  by 
the  account  left  in  the  works  of  a  great  Positivist 
controversial  writer,  were  very  absurd. 

To  put  the  matter  briefly,  M.  Comte,  finding 
Christianity  and  Science  at  daggers  drawn,  seems 
to  have  said  to  Science,  "  You  find  Christianity 
rotten  at  the  core,  do  you  ?  Well,  I  will  scoop 
out  the  inside  of  it."  And  to  Romanism  :  "  You 
find    Science    mere    dry    light — cold    and    bare. 


VII  AGNOSTICISM  261 

Well,  I  will  put  your  shell  over  it,  and  so,  as 
schoolboys  make  a  spectre  out  of  a  turnip  and  a 
tallow  candle,  behold  the  new  religion  of  Humanity 
complete ! " 

Unfortunately  neither  the  Romanists,  nor  the 
people  who  were  something  more  than  amateurs 
in  science,  could  be  got  to  worship  M.  Comte's 
new  idol  properly.  In  the  native  country  of 
Positivism,  one  distinguished  man  of  letters  and 
one  of  science,  for  a  time,  helped  to  make  up  a 
roomful  of  the  faithful,  but  their  love  soon  grew 
cold.  In  England,  on  the  other  hand,  there  ap- 
pears to  be  little  doubt  that,  in  the  ninth  decade 
of  the  century,  the  multitude  of  disciples  reached 
the  grand  total  of  several  score.  They  had  the 
advantage  of  the  advocacy  of  one  or  two  most 
eloquent  and  learned  apostles,  and,  at  any  rate, 
the  sympathy  of  several  persons  of  light  and 
leading ;  and,  if  they  were  not  seen,  they  were 
heard,  all  over  the  world.  On  the  other  hand,  as 
a  sect,  they  laboured  under  the  prodigious 
disadvantage  of  being  refined,  estimable  people, 
living  in  the  midst  of  the  worn-out  civilisation  of 
the  old  world;  where  any  one  who  had  tried  to 
persecute  them,  as  the  Mormons  were  persecuted, 
would  have  been  instantly  hanged.  But  the 
majority  never  dreamed  of  persecuting  them ;  on 
the  contrary,  they  were  rather  given  to  scold  and 
otherwise  try  the  patience  of  the  majority. 

The  history  of  these  sects  in  the  closing  years 


262  AGNOSTICISM  VII 

of  the  century  is  highly  instructive.      Mormon- 
ism  .... 

But  I  find  I  have  suddenly  slipped  off  Mr. 
Harrison's  tripod,  which  I  had  borrowed  for  the 
occasion.  The  fact  is,  I  am  not  equal  to  the 
prophetical  business,  and  ought  not  to  have 
undertaken  it. 

[It  did  not  occur  to  me,  while  writing  the 
latter  part  of  this  essay,  that  it  could  be  needful 
to  disclaim  the  intention  of  putting  the  religious 
system  of  Comte  on  a  level  with  Mormonism. 
And  I  was  unaware  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Harrison 
rejects  the  greater  part  of  the  Positivist  Religion, 
as  taught  by  Comte.  I  have,  therefore,  erased 
one  or  two  passages,  which  implied  his  adherence 
to  the  "  Religion  of  Humanity  "  as  developed  by 
Comte,  1693.] 


VIII 

AGNOSTICISM :  A  REJOINDER 

[1889.] 

Those  who  passed  from  Dr.  Wace's  article  in  the 
last  number  of  the  "  Nineteenth  Century  "  to  the 
anticipatory  confutation  of  it  which  followed  in 
"  The  New  Reformation/'  must  have  enjoyed  the 
pleasure  of  a  dramatic  surprise — just  as  when  the 
fifth  act  of  a  new  play  proves  unexpectedly  bright 
and  interesting.  Mrs.  Ward  will,  I  hope,  pardon 
the  comparison,  if  I  say  that  her  effective  clearing 
away  of  antiquated  incumbrances  from  the  lists  of 
the  controversy,  reminds  me  of  nothing  so  much 
as  of  the  action  of  some  neat-handed,  but  strong- 
wristed,  Phyllis,  who,  gracefully  wielding  her 
long-handled  "  Turk's  head,"  sweeps  away  the 
accumulated  results  of  the  toil  of  generations  of 
spiders.  I  am  the  more  indebted  to  this  luminous 
sketch  of  the  results  of  critical  investigation,  as  it 
is  carried  out  among  those  theologians  who  are 
men  of  science  and  not  mere  counsel  for  creeds, 


264  AGNOSTICISM:   A  REJOINDER  Till 

since  it  has  relieved  me  from  the  necessity  of 
dealing  with  the  greater  part  of  Dr.  Wace's 
polemic,  and  enables  me  to  devote  more  space  to 
the  really  important  issues  which  have  been 
raised.1 

Perhaps,  however,  it  may  be  well  for  me  to 
observe  that  approbation  of  the  manner  in  which 
a  great  biblical  scholar,  for  instance,  Reuss,  does 
his  work  does  not  commit  me  to  the  adoption  of 
all,  or  indeed  any  of  his  views ;  and,  further,  that 
the  disagreements  of  a  series  of  investigators  do 
not  in  any  way  interfere  with  the  fact  that  each 
of  them  has  made  important  contributions  to  the 
body  of  truth  ultimately  established.  If  I  cite 
BufTon,  Linnaeus,  Lamarck,  and  Cuvier,  as  having 
each  and  all  taken  a  leading  share  in  building  up 
modern  biology,  the  statement  that  every  one  of 
these  great  naturalists  disagreed  with,  and  even 
more  or  less  contradicted,  all  the  rest  is  quite 
true  ;  but  the  supposition  that  the  latter  assertion 
is  in  any  way  inconsistent  with  the  former,  would 
betray  a  strange  ignorance  of  the  manner  in  which 
all  true  science  advances. 

Dr.  Wace  takes  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  make 
it  appear  that  I  have  desired  to  evade  the  real 
questions  raised  by  his  attack  upon  me  at  the 

1  I  may  perhaps  return  to  the  question  of  the  authorship  of 
the  Gospels.  For  the  present  I  must  content  myself  with 
warning  my  readers  against  any  reliance  upon  Dr.  Wace's  state- 
ments as  to  the  results  arrived  at  by  modern  criticism.  They 
are  as  gravely  as  surprisingly  erroneous. 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM:   A   REJOINDER  265 

Church  Congress.  I  assure  the  reverend  Principal 
that  in  this,  as  in  some  other  respects,  he  has 
entertained  a  very  erroneous  conception  of  my 
intentions.  Things  would  assume  more  accurate 
proportions  in  Dr.  W  ace's  mind,  if  he  would 
kindly  remember  that  it  is  just  thirty  years  since 
ecclesiastical  thunderbolts  began  to  fly  about  my 
ears.  I  have  had  the  "  Lion  and  the  Bear "  to 
deal  with,  and  it  is  long  since  I  got  quite  used  to 
the  threatenings  of  episcopal  Goliath s,  whose 
croziers  were  like  unto  a  weaver's  beam.  So  that 
I  almost  think  I  might  not  have  noticed  Dr. 
Wace's  attack,  personal  as  it  was  ;  and  although, 
as  he  is  good  enough  to  tell  us,  separate  copies 
are  to  be  had  for  the  modest  equivalent  of  twopence, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  did  not  come  under  my 
notice  for  a  long  time  after  it  was  made.  May  I 
further  venture  to  point  out  that  (reckoning  post- 
age) the  expenditure  of  twopence-halfpenny,  or,  at 
the  most,  threepence,  would  have  enabled  Dr. 
Wace  so  far  to  comply  with  ordinary  conventions, 
as  to  direct  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
attacked  me  before  a  meeting  at  which  I  was  not 
present  ?  I  really  am  not  responsible  for  the  five 
months'  neglect  of  which  Dr.  Wace  complains. 
Singiilarly  enough,  the  Englishry  who  swarmed 
about  the  Engadine,  during  the  three  months 
that  I  was  being  brought  back  to  life  by  the 
glorious  air  and  perfect  comfort  of  the  Maloja,  did 
not,    in    my   hearing,    say   anything   about    the 


266  AGNOSTICISM:   A   REJOINDER  vm 

important  events  which  had  taken  place  at  the 
Church  Congress  ;  and  I  think  I  can  venture  to 
affirm  that  there  was  not  a  single  copy  of  Dr. 
Wace's  pamphlet  in  any  of  the  hotel  libraries 
which  I  rummaged,  in  search  of  something  more 
edifying  than  dull  English  or  questionable  French 
novels. 

And  now,  having,  as  I  hope,  set  myself  right 
with  the  public  as  regards  the  sins  of  commission 
and  omission  with,  which  I  have  been  charged,  I 
feel  free  to  deal  with  matters  to  which  time  and 
type  may  be  more  profitably  devoted. 

I  believe  that  there  is  not  a  solitary  argument 
I  have  used,  or  that  I  am  about  to  use,  which  is 
original,  or  has  anything  to  do  with  the  fact  that 
I  have  been  chiefly  occupied  with  natural  science. 
They  are  all,  facts  and  reasoning  alike,  either 
identical  with,  or  consequential  upon,  propositions 
which  are  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  scholars 
and  theologians  of  the  highest  repute  in  the  only 
two  countries,  Holland  and  Germany,1  in  which, 
at  the  present  time,  professors  of  theology  are  to 
be  found,  whose  tenure  of  their  posts  does  not 
depend  upon  the  results  to  which  their  inquiries 
lead  them.2     It  is  true  that,  to  the   best   of  my 

1  The  United  States  ought,  perhaps,  to  be  added,  but  I  am 
not  sure. 

2  Imagine  that  all  our  chairs  of  Astronomy  had  been  founded 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  that  their  incumbents  were  bound 
to  sign  Ptolemaic  articles.  In  that  case,  with  every  respect  for 
the  efforts  of  persons  thus  hampered  to  attain  and  expound  th© 


\m  AGNOSTICISM  :  A   REJOINDER  267 

ability,  I  have  satisfied  myself  of  the  soundness  of 
the  foundations  on  which  my  arguments  are  built, 
and  I  desire  to  be  held  fully  responsible  for 
everything  I  say.  But,  nevertheless,  my  position 
is  really  no  more  than  that  of  an  expositor ;  and 
my  justification  for  undertaking  it  is  simply  that 
conviction  of  the  supremacy  of  private  judgment 
(indeed,  of  the  impossibility  of  escaping  it)  which 
is  the  foundation  of  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
and  which  was  the  doctrine  accepted  by  the  vast 
majority  of  the  Anglicans  of  my  youth,  before 
that  backsliding  towards  the  "  beggarly  rudi- 
ments "  of  an  effete  and  idolatrous  sacerdotalism 
which  has,  even  now,  provided  us  with  the  saddest 
spectacle  which  has  been  offered  to  the  eyes  of 
Englishmen  in  this  generation.  A  high  court  of 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  with  a  host  of  great 
lawyers  in  battle  array,  is  and,  for  Heaven  knows 
how  long,  will  be,  occupied  with  these  very 
questions  of  "  washing  of  cups  and  pots  and  brazen 
vessels,"    which     the    Master,    whose    professed 

truth,  I  think  men  of  common  sense  would  go  elsewhere  to  learn 
astronomy.  Zeller's  Vorlrage  und  Abhandlungm  were  published 
and  came  into  my  hands  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  The 
writer's  rank,  as  a  theologian  to  begin  with,  and  subsequently 
as  a  historian  of  Greek  philosophy,  is  of  the  highest.  Among 
these  essays  are  two  —Das  Urchristenthum  and  Die  Tubiugcr 
historische  Schicle — which  are  likely  to  be  of  mow  use  to  those 
who  wish  to  know  the  real  state  of  the  case  than  all  that  the 
official  "apologists,"  with  their  one  eye  on  truth  and  the  other 
on  the  tenets  of  their  sect,  have  written.  For  the  opinion  of  a 
scientific  theologian  about  theologians  of  .this  stamp  see  pp.  225 
and  227  of  the  Vortrage. 


208  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDER  vill 

representatives  are  rending  the  Church  over  these 
squabbles,  had  in  his  mind  when,  as  we  are  told, 
he  uttered  the  scathing  rebuke  : — ■ 

Well  did  Isaiah  prophesy  of  you  hypocrites,  as  it  is  written, 
This  people  honoureth  me  with  their  lips, 
But  their  heart  is  far  from  me. 
But  in  vain  do  they  worship  me, 
Teaching  as  their  doctrines  the  precepts  of  men. 

(Mark  vii.  6-7.) 

Men  who  can  be  absorbed  in  bickerings  over 
miserable  disputes  of  this  kind  can  have  but  little 
sympathy  with  the  old  evangelical  doctrine  of  the 
"  open  Bible,"  or  anything  but  a  grave  misgiving 
of  the  results  of  diligent  reading  of  the  Bible, 
without  the  help  of  ecclesiastical  spectacles,  by 
the  mass  of  the  people.  Greatly  to  the  surprise 
of  many  of  my  friends,  I  have  always  advocated 
the  reading  of  the  Bible,  and  the  diffusion  of  the 
study  of  that  most  remarkable  collection  of  books 
among  the  people.  Its  teachings  are  so  infinitely 
superior  to  those  of  the  sects,  who  are  just  as  busy 
now  as  the  Pharisees  were  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago,  in  smothering  them  under  "  the  precepts  of 
men  "  ;  it  is  so  certain,  to  my  mind,  that  the  Bible 
contains  within  itself  the  refutation  of  nine-tenths 
of  the  mixture  of  sophistical  metaphysics  and 
old-world  superstition  which  has  been  piled  round 
it  by  the  so-called  Christians  of  later  times ;  it  is 
so  clear  that  the  only  immediate  and  ready 
antidote  to  the  poison  which  has  been  mixed  with 


Vin  AGNOSTICISM  :  A   REJOINDER  269 

Christianity,  to  the  intoxication  and  delusion  of 
mankind,  lies  in  copious  draughts  from  the 
undefiled  spring,  that  I  exercise  the  right  and 
duty  of  free  judgment  on  the  part  of  every  man, 
mainly  for  the  purpose  of  inducing  other  laymen 
to  follow  my  example.  If  the  New  Testament 
is  translated  into  Zulu  by  Protestant  missionaries, 
it  must  be  assumed  that  a  Zulu  convert  is  compe- 
tent to  draw  from  its  contents  all  the  truths  which 
it  is  necessary  for  him  to  believe.  I  trust  that  I 
may,  without  immodesty,  claim  to  be  put  on  the 
same  footing  as  a  Zulu. 

The  most  constant  reproach  which  is  launched 
against  persons  of  my  way  of  thinking  is  that  it  is 
all  very  well  for  us  to  talk  about  the  deductions 
of  scientific  thought,  but  what  are  the  poor  and 
the  uneducated  to  do  ?  Has  it  ever  occurred  to 
those  who  talk  in  this  fashion,  that  their  creeds 
and  the  articles  of  their  several  confessions,  their 
determination  of  the  exact  nature  and  extent  of 
the  teachings  of  Jesus,  their  expositions  of  the 
real  meaning  of  that  which  is  written  in  the 
Epistles  (to  leave  aside  all  questions  concerning 
the  Old  Testament),  are  nothing  more  than 
deductions  which,  at  any  rate,  profess  to  be  the 
result  of  strictly  scientific  thinking,  and  which  are 
not  worth  attending  to  unless  they  really  possess 
that  character  ?  If  it  is  not  historically  true  that 
such  and  such  things  happened  in  Palestine 
eighteen  centuries  ago,  what  becomes  of  Chris- 


270  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDEE  vill 

tianity  ?  And  what  is  historical  truth  but  that  of 
which  the  evidence  bears  strict  scientific  investi- 
gation ?  I  do  not  call  to  mind  any  j^roblem  of 
natural  science  which  has  come  under  my  notice 
which  is  more  difficult,  or  more  curiously 
interesting  as  a  mere  problem,  than  that  of  the 
origin  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  that  of  the 
historical  value  of  the  narratives  which  they 
contain.  The  Christianity  of  the  Churches  stands 
or  falls  by  the  results  of  the  purely  scientific 
investigation  of  these  questions.  They  were  first 
taken  up,  in  a  purely  scientific  spirit,  about  a 
century  ago  ;  they  have  been  studied  over  and 
over  again  by  men  of  vast  knowledge  and  critical 
acumen  ;  but  he  would  be  a  rash  man  who  should 
assert  that  any  solution  of  these  problems,  as  yet 
formulated,  is  exhaustive.  The  most  that  can  be 
said  is  that  certain  prevalent  solutions  are 
certainly  false,  while  others  are  more  or  less 
probably  true. 

If  I  am  doing  my  best  to  rouse  my  countrymen 
out  of  their  dogmatic  slumbers,  it  is  not  that  they 
may  be  amused  by  seeing  who  gets  the  best  of  it 
in  a  contest  between  a  "  scientist "  and  a  theolo- 
gian. The  serious  question  is  whether  theological 
men  of  science,  or  theological  special  pleaders,  are 
to  have  the  confidence  of  the  general  public; 
it  is  the  question  whether  a  country  in  which  it  is 
possible  for  a  body  of  excellent  clerical  and  lay 
gentlemen  to  discuss,  in  public  meeting  assembled, 


vni  AGNOSTICISM  :   A   REJOINDER  271 

now  much  it  is  desirable  to  let  the  congregations 
of  the  faithful  know  of  the  results  of  biblical 
criticism,  is  likely  to  wake  up  with  anything  short 
of  the  grasp  of  a  rough  lay  hand  upon  its 
shoulder;  it  is  the  question  whether  the  New 
Testament  books,  being,  as  I  believe  they  were, 
written  and  compiled  by  people  who,  according  to 
their  lights,  were  perfectly  sincere,  will  not,  when 
properly  studied  as  ordinary  historical  documents, 
afford  us  the  means  of  self-criticism.  And  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  New  Testament  books 
are  not  responsible  for  the  doctrine  invented  by 
the  Churches  that  they  are  anything  but  ordinary 
historical  documents.  The  author  of  the  third 
gospel  tells  us,  as  straightforwardly  as  a  man  can, 
that  he  has  no  claim  to  any  other  character  than 
that  of  an  ordinary  compiler  and  editor,  who  had 
before  him  the  works  of  many  and  variously 
qualified  predecessors. 

In  my  former  papers,  according  to  Dr.  Wace,  I 
have  evaded  giving  an  answer  to  his  main  propo- 
sition, which  he  states  as  follows — 

Apart  from  all  disputed  points  of  criticism,  no  one  practically 
doubts  that  our  Lord  lived,  and  that  He  died  on  the  cross,  in 
the  most  intense  sense  of  filial  relation  to  His  Father  in  Heaven, 
and  that  Ha  bore  testimony  to  that  Father's  providence,  love, 
and  grace  towards  mankind.  The  Lord's  Prayer  affords  a 
sufficient  evideuce  on  these  points.  If  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
alone  be  added,  the  whole  unseen  world,  of  which  the  Agnostic 
refuses  to  know  snytliing,  stands  unveiled  before  us.  .  .  .  If 
133 


272  AGNOSTICISM  :   A   REJOINDER  vill 

Jesus  Christ  preached  that  Sermon,  made  those  promises,  and 
taught  that  prayer,  then  any  one  who  says  that  we  know  nothing 
of  God,  or  of  a  future  life,  or  of  an  unseen  world,  says  that  he 
does  not  believe  Jesus  Christ  (pp.  354-355). 

A<min — 

o 

The  main  question  at  issue,  in  a  word,  is  one  which  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  has  chosen  to  leave  entirely  on  one  side — whether, 
namely,  allowing  for  the  utmost  uncertainty  on  other  points  of 
the  criticism  to  which  he  appeals,  there  is  any  reasonable  doubt 
that  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  afford  a 
true  account  of  our  Lord's  essential  belief  and  cardinal  teaching 
(p.  355). 

I  certainly  was  not  aware  that  I  had  evaded  the 
questions  here  stated  ;  indeed  I  should  say  that  I 
have  indicated  my  reply  to  them  pretty  clearly; 
but,  as  Dr.  Wace  wants  a  plainer  answer,  he  shall 
certainly  be  gratified.  If,  as  Dr.  Wace  declares  it 
is,  his  "  whole  case  is  involved  in  "  the  argument 
as  stated  in  the  latter  of  these  two  extracts,  so 
much  the  worse  for  his  whole  case.  For  I  am  of 
opinion  that  there  is  the  gravest  reason  for 
doubting  whether  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount  " 
was  ever  preached,  and  whether  the  so-called 
"  Lord's  Prayer "  was  ever  prayed,  by  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  My  reasons  for  this  opinion  are,  among 
others,  these  : — There  is  now  no  doubt  that  the 
three  Synoptic  Gospels,  so  far  from  being  the  work 
of  three  independent  writers,  are  closely  inter- 
dependent,1 and  that  in  one  of  two  ways.     Either 

1  I  suppose  this  is  what  Dr.  Wace  is  thinking  about  when  he 
says  that  I  allege  that  there   "is  no  visible  escape  "  from  the 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM  :    A   REJOINDER  273 

all  three  contain,  as  their  foundation,  versions,  to 
a  large  extent  verbally  identical,  of  one  and  the 
same  tradition  ;  or  two  of  them  are  thus  closely 
dependent  on  the  third  ;  and  the  opinion  of  the 
majority  of  the  best  critics  has  of  late  years  more 
and  more  converged  towards  the  conviction  that 
our  canonical  second  gospel  (the  so-called  "Mark's" 
Gospel)  is  that  which  most  closely  represents  the 
primitive  groundwork  of  the  three.1  That  I  take 
to  be  one  of  the  most  valuable  results  of  New 
Testament  criticism,  of  immeasurably  greater  im- 
portance than  the  discussion  about  dates  and 
authorship. 

But  if,  as  I  believe  to  be  the  case,  beyond  any 
rational  doubt  or  dispute,  the  second  gospel  is  the 
nearest  extant  representative  of  the  oldest  tradi- 
tion, whether  written  or  oral,  how  comes  it  that  it 

supposition  of  an  Ur-Marcus  (p.  367).  That  a  "theologian  of 
repute"  should  confound  an  indisputable  fact  with  one  of  the 
modes  of  explaining  that  fact  is  not  so  singular  as  those  who  are 
unaccustomed  to  the  ways  of  theologians  might  imagine. 

1  Any  examiner  whose  duty  it  has  been  to  examine  into  a  case 
of  '"  copying  "  will  be  parti -ularly  well  prepared  to  appreciate 
the  force  of  the  case  stated  in  that  most  excellent  little  book, 
The  Common  Tradition  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  by  Dr.  Abbott 
and  Mr.  Rushbrooke  (Macmillan,  1884).  To  those  who  have  not 
passed  through  such  painful  experiences  I  may  recommend  the 
brief  discussion  of  the  genuineness  of  the  "  Osket  Letters  "  in  my 
friend  Mr.  Skelton's  interesting  book,  Mailland  of  Lething'on. 
The  second  edition  of  Holtzmann's  Lehrbuch,  published  in  1886, 
gives  a  remarkably  fair  and  full  account  of  the  present  results  of 
criticism.  At  p.  366  he  writes  that  the  present  burning  question 
is  whether  the  "relatively  primitive  narrative  and  the  root  of 
the  other  synoptic  texts  is  contained  in  Matthew  or  in  Mark. 
It  is  only  on  this  yjoint  that  properly-informed  (sachkundige) 
critics  differ,"  and  he  decides  in  favour  of  Mark. 


274  AGNOSTICISM:   A  REJOINDER  vm 

contains  neither  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount "  nor 
the  "  Lord's  Prayer,"  those  typical  embodiments, 
according  to  Dr.  Wace,  of  the  "  essential  belief  and 
cardinal  teaching "  of  Jesus  ?  Not  only  does 
"  Mark's  "  gospel  fail  to  contain  the  "  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,"  or  anything  but  a  very  few  of  the 
sayings  contained  in  that  collection ;  but,  at  the 
point  of  the  history  of  Jesus  where  the  "  Sermon  " 
occurs  in  "  Matthew,"  there  is  in  "  Mark "  an 
apparently  unbroken  narrative  from  the  calling  of 
James  and  John  to  the  healing  of  Simon's  wife's 
mother.  Thus  the  oldest  tradition  not  only  ignores 
the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  but,  by  implication, 
raises  a  probability  against  its  being  delivered 
when  and  where  the  later  'f  Matthew  "  inserts  it  in 
his  compilation. 

And  still  more  weighty  is  the  fact  that  the  third 
gospel,  the  author  of  which  tells  us  that  he  wrote 
after  "  many "  others  had  "  taken  in  hand "  the 
same  enterprise;  who  should  therefore  have  known 
the  first  gospel  (if  it  existed),  and  was  bound  to 
pay  to  it  the  deference  due  to  the  work  of  an 
apostolic  eye-witness  (if  he  had  any  reason  for 
thinking  it  was  so) — this  writer,  who  exhibits  far 
more  literary  competence  than  the  other  two, 
ignores  any  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  such  as  that 
reported  by  "  Matthew,"  just  as  much  as  the  oldest 
authority  does.  Yet  "  Luke  "  has  a  great  many 
passages  identical,  or  parallel,  with  those  in 
"  Matthew's  "  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  which  are, 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM  :   A    REJOINDER  275 

for  the  most  part,  scattered   about  in  a  totally 
different  connection. 

Interposed,  however,  between  the  nomination  of 
the  Apostles  and  a  visit  to  Capernaum  ;  occupying, 
therefore,  a  place  which  answers  to  that  _  of  the 
"  Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  in  the  first  gospel,  there 
is,  in  the  third  gospel  a  discourse  which  is  as  closely 
similar  to  the  "  Sermon  in  the  Mount,"  in  some 
particulars,  as  it  is  widely  unlike  it  in  others. 

This  discourse  is  said  to  have  been  delivered  in 
a  "  plain  "  or  "  level  place  "  (Luke  vi.  17),  and  by 
way  of  distinction  we  may  call  it  the  "Sermon  on 
the  Plain." 

I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  two  Evan- 
gelists are  dealing,  to  a  considerable  extent,  with 
the  same  traditional  material ;  and  a  comparison 
of  the  two  "  Sermons  "  suggests  very  strongly  that 
"Luke's"  version  is  the  earlier.  The  eorrespond- 
dences  between  the  two  forbid  the  notion  that 
they  are  independent.  They  both  begin  with  a 
series  of  blessings,  some  of  which  are  almost 
verbally  identical.  In  the  middle  of  each  (Luke 
vi.  27-38,  Matt.  v.  43-48)  there  is  a  striking  expo- 
sition of  the  ethical  spirit  of  the  command  given 
in  Leviticus  xix.  18.  And  each  ends  with  a  pas- 
sage containing  the  declaration  that  a  tree  is  to  be 
known  by  its  fruit,  and  the  parable  of  the  house 
built  on  the  sand.  But  while  there  are  only  29 
verses  in  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Plain "  there  are 
107  in  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount "  ;  the  excess 
in  length  of  the  latter  being  chiefly  due  to  the 


276  AGNOSTICISM  :    A   EEJOINDEE  Till 

long  interpolations,  one  of  30  verses  before  and 
one  of  34  verses  after,  the  middlemost  parallelism 
with  Luke.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  quite 
impossible  to  admit  that  there  is  more  probability 
that  "  Matthew's  "  version  of  the  Sermon  is  histori- 
cally accurate,  than  there  is  that  Luke's  version  is 
so ;  and  they  cannot  both  be  accurate. 

"  Luke  "  either  knew  the  collection  of  loosely- 
connected  and  aphoristic  utterances  which  appear 
under  the  name  of  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount " 
in  "  Matthew  "  ;  or  he  did  not.  If  he  did  not,  he 
must  have  been  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  such 
a  document  as  our  canonical  "  Matthew,"  a  fact 
which  does  not  make  for  the  genuineness,  or  the 
authority,  of  that  book.  _  If  he  did,  he  has  shown 
that  he  does  not  care  for  its  authority  on  a  matter 
of  fact  of  no  small  importance ;  and  that  does  not 
permit  us  to  conceive  that  he  believed  the  first  gospel 
to  be  the  work  of  an  authority  to  whom  he  ought 
to  defer,  let  alone  that  of  an  apostolic  eye- 
witness. 

The  tradition  of  the  Church  about  the  second 
gospel,  which  I  believe  to  be  quite  worthless,  but 
which  is  all  the  evidence  there  is  for  "  Mark's  " 
authorship,  would  have  us  believe  that  "  Mark  " 
was  little  more  than  the  mouthpiece  of  the  apostle 
Peter.  Consequently,  we  are  to  suppose  that 
Peter  either  did  not  know,  or  did  not  care  very 
much  for,  that  account  of  the  "essential  belief 
and  cardinal  teaching "  of  Jesus  which  is  con- 
tained in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  and,  certainly, 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM  :  A   REJOINDER  277 

he  could  not  have  shared  Dr.  Wace's  view  of  its 
importance.1 

I  thought  that  all  fairly  attentive  and  intelligent 
students  of  the  gospels,  to  say  nothing  of  theo- 
logians of  reputation,  knew  these  things.-  But 
how  can  any  one  who  does  know  them  have  the 
conscience  to  ask  whether  there  is  "  any  reason- 
able doubt "  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
was  preached  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ?  If  conjecture 
is  permissible,  where  nothing  else  is  possible, 
the  most  probable  conjecture  seems  to  be  that 
"  Matthew/'  having  a  cento  of  sayings  attributed — 
rightly  or  wrongly  it  is  impossible  to  say — to  Jesus 
among  his  materials,  thought  they  were,  or  might 
be,  records  of  a  continuous  discourse,  and  put  them 
in  at  the  place  he  thought  likeliest.  Ancient  his- 
torians of  the  highest  character  saw  no  harm  in 
composing  long  speeches  which  never  were  spoken, 
and  putting  them  into  the  mouths  of  statesmen 
and  warriors ;  and  I  presume  that  whoever  is  re- 
presented by  "  Matthew  "  would  have  been  griev- 
ously astonished  to  find  that  any  one  objected  to 
his  following  the  example  of  the  best  models 
accessible  to  him. 

1  Holtzmann  (Die  synoptischen  Evangelien,  1863,  p.  75), 
following  Ewald,  argues  that  tlie  'Source  A"  (  =  the  threefold 
tradition,  more  or  less)  contained  something  that  answered  to 
the  "Sermon  on  the  Plain "  immediately  after  the  words  of  our 
present  Mark,  "And  he  cometh  into  a  house"  (iii.  19).  But 
what  conceivable  motive  could  "Mark"  have  for  omitting  it  \ 
Holtzmann  has  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  "Sermon  on  the 
Mount"  is  a  compilation,  or,  as  he  calls  it  in  his  recently- 
published  Lehrbuch  (p.  372),  "an  artificial  mosaic  work." 


278  AGNOSTICISM:   A  REJOINDER  vill 

So  with  the  "Lord's  Prayer."  Absent  in  our 
representative  of  the  oldest  tradition,  it  appears 
in  both  "  Matthew  "  and  "  Luke."  There  is  reason 
to  believe  that  every  pious  Jew,  at  the  commence- 
ment of  our  era,  prayed  three  times  a  day, 
according  to  a  formula  which  is  embodied  in  the 
present  "  Schmone-Esre  "  1  of  the  Jewish  prayer- 
book.  Jesus,  who  was  assuredly,  in  all  respects,  a 
pious  Jew,  whatever  else  he  may  have  been, 
doubtless  did  the  same.  Whether  he  modified 
the  current  formula,  or  whether  the  so-called 
"  Lord's  Prayer  "  is  the  prayer  substituted  for  the 
"  Schmone-Esre  "  in  the  congregations  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, is  a  question  which  can  hardly  be  answered. 

In  a  subsequent  passage  of  Dr.  Wace's  article 
(p.  356)  he  adds  to  the  list  of  the  verities  which 
he  imagines  to  be  unassailable,  "The  Story  of  the 
Passion."  I  am  not  quite  sure  what  he  means  by 
this.  I  am  not  aware  that  any  one  (with  the 
exception  of  certain  ancient  heretics)  has  pro- 
pounded doubts  as  to  the  reality  of  the  crucifixion ; 
and  certainly  I  have  no  inclination  to  argue  about 
the  precise  accuracy  of  every  detail  of  that 
pathetic  story  of  suffering  and  wrong.  But,  if 
Dr.  Wace  means,  as  I  suppose  he  does,  that  that 
which,  according  to  the  orthodox  view,  happened 
after  the  crucifixion,  and  which  is,  in  a  dogmatic 
sense,  the  most  important  part  of  the  story,  is 

1  See  Schiirer,  Geschichte  des  jiidischen  Volkes,  Zweiter  Theil, 
p.  384. 


viii  AGNOSTICISM  :   A   REJOINDER  279 

founded  on  solid  historical  proofs,  I  must  beg  leave 
to  express  a  diametrically  opposite  conviction. 

What  do  we  find  when  the  accounts  of  the 
events  in  question,  contained  in  the  three  Synoptic 
gospels,  are  compared  together  ?  In  the  oldest, 
there  is  a  simple,  straightforward  statement  which, 
for  anything  that  I  have  to  urge  to  the  contrary, 
may  be  exactly  true.  In  the  other  two,  there  is, 
round  this  possible  and  probable  nucleus,  a  mass 
of  accretions  of  the  most  questionable  character. 

The  cruelty  of  death  by  crucifixion  depended 
very  much  upon  its  lingering  character.  If  there 
were  a  support  for  the  weight  of  the  body,  as  not 
unfrequently  was  the  practice,  the  pain  during 
the  first  hours  of  the  infliction  was  not,  necessarily, 
extreme  ;  nor  need  any  serious  physical  symptoms, 
at  once,  arise  from  the  wounds  made  by  the  nails 
in  the  hands  and  feet,  supposing  they  were  nailed, 
which  was  not  invariably  the  case.  When 
exhaustion  set  in,  and  hunger,  thirst,  and  nervous 
irritation  had  done  their  work,  the  agony  of  the 
sufferer  must  have  been  terrible ;  and  the  more 
terrible  that,  in  the  absence  of  any  effectual 
disturbance  of  the  machinery  of  physical  life,  it 
might  be  prolonged  for  many  hours,  or  even  days. 
Temperate,  strong  men,  such  as  were  the  ordinary 
Galilean  peasants,  might  live  for  several  days  on 
the  cross.  It  is  necessary  to  bear  these  facts  in 
mind  when  we  read  the  account  contained  in  the 
fifteenth  chapter  of  the  second  gospel. 


280  AGNOSTICISM:  A  REJOINDER  vill 

Jesus  was  crucified  at  the  third  hour  (xv.  25), 
and  the  narrative  seems  to  imply  that  he  died 
immediately  after  the  ninth  hour  (v.  34).  In  this 
case,  he  would  have  been  crucified  only  six  hours; 
and  the  time  spent  on  the  cross  cannot  have  been 
much  longer,  because  Joseph  of  Arimathsea  must 
have  gone  to  Pilate,  made  his  preparations,  and 
deposited  the  body  in  the  rock-cut  tomb  before 
sunset,  which,  at  that  time  of  the  year,  was  about 
the  twelfth  hour.  That  any  one  should  die  after 
only  six  hours'  crucifixion  could  not  have  been  at 
all  in  accordance  with  Pilate's  large  experience  of 
the  effects  of  that  method  of  punishment.  It, 
therefore,  quite  agrees  with  what  might  be  ex- 
pected, that  Pilate  "  marvelled  if  he  were  already 
dead"  and  required  to  be  satisfied  on  this  point 
by  the  testimony  of  the  Roman  officer  who  was  in 
command  of  the  execution  party.  Those  who 
have  paid  attention  to  the  extraordinarily  difficult 
question,  What  are  the  indisputable  signs  of 
death  ? — will  be  able  to  estimate  the  value  of  the 
opinion  of  a  rough  soldier  on  such  a  subject ; 
even  if  his  report  to  the  Procurator  were  in  no  wise 
affected  by  the  fact  that  the  friend  of  Jesus,  who 
anxiously  awaited  his  answer,  was  a  man  of 
influence  and  of  wealth. 

The   inanimate    body,  wrapped    in   linen,   was 
deposited  in  a  spacious,1  cool  rock  chamber,  the 

1  Spacious,  because  a  young  man  could  sit  in  it  "  on  the  right 
side  "  (xv.  5),  and  therefore  with  plenty  of  room  to  spare. 


Viii  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDER  281 

entrance  of  which  was  closed,  not  hy  a  well-fitting 
door,  but  by  a  stone  rolled  against  the  opening, 
which  would  of  course  allow  free  passage  of  air. 
A  little  more  than  thirty-six  hours  afterwards 
(Friday  6  P.M.,  to  Sunday  6  A.M.,  or  a  little  after) 
three  women  visit  the  tomb  and  find  it  empty. 
And  they  are  told  by  a  young  man  "  arrayed  in  a 
white  robe "  that  Jesus  is  gone  to  his  native 
country  of  Galilee,  and  that  the  disciples  and  Peter 
will  find  him  there. 

Thus  it  stands,  plainly  recorded,  in  the  oldest 
tradition  that,  for  any  evidence  to  the  contrary, 
the  sepulchre  may  have  been  emptied  at  any  time 
during  the  Friday  or  Saturday  nights.  If  it  is 
said  that  no  Jew  would  have  violated  the  Sabbath 
by  taking  the  former  course,  it  is  to  be  recollected 
that  Joseph  of  Arimathsea  might  well  be  familiar 
with  that  wise  and  liberal  interpretation  of  the 
fourth  commandment,  which  permitted  works  of 
mercy  to  men — nay,  even  the  drawing  of  an  ox  or 
an  ass  out  of  a  pit — on  the  Sabbath.  At  any 
rate,  the  Saturday  night  was  free  to  the  most 
scrupulous  of  observers  of  the  Law. 

These  are  the  facts  of  the  case  as  stated  by  the 
oldest  extant  narrative  of  them.  I  do  not  see  why 
any  one  should  have  a  word  to  say  against  the 
inherent  probability  of  that  narrative  ;  and,  for  my 
part,  I  am  quite  ready  to  accept  it  as  an  historical 
fact,  that  so  much  and  no  more  is  positively  known 
of  the    end    of   Jesus    of   Nazareth.      On    what 


282  AGNOSTICISM:  A  KEJOINDER  vm 

grounds  can  a  reasonable  man  be  asked  to  believe 
any  more  ?  So  far  as  the  narrative  in  the  first 
gospel,  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  in  the  third 
gospel  and  the  Acts,  on  the  other,  go  beyond  what 
is  stated  in  the  second  gospel,  they  are  hopelessly 
discrepant  with  one  another.  And  this  is  the  more 
significant  because  the  pregnant  phrase  "some 
doubted,"  in  the  first  gospel,  is  ignored  in  the 
third. 

But  it  is  said  that  we  have  the  witness  Paul 
speaking  to  us  directly  in  the  Epistles.  There  is 
little  doubt  that  we  have,  and  a  very  singular 
witness  he  is.  According  to  his  own  showing, 
Paul,  in  the  vigour  of  his  manhood,  with  every 
means  of  becoming  acquainted,  at  first  hand,  with 
the  evidence  of  eye-witnesses,  not  merely  refused 
to  credit  them,  but "  persecuted  the  church  of  God 
and  made  havoc  of  it."  The  reasoning  of  Stephen 
fell  dead  upon  the  acute  intellect  of  this  zealot  for 
the  traditions  of  his  fathers :  his  eyes  were  blind 
to  the  ecstatic  illumination  of  the  martyr's 
countenance  "  as  it  had  been  the  face  of  an 
angel ; "  and  when,  at  the  words  "  Behold,  I  see 
the  heavens  opened  and  the  Son  of  Man  standing 
on  the  right  hand  of  God,"  the  murderous  mob 
rushed  upon  and  stoned  the  rapt  disciple  of  Jesus, 
Paul  ostentatiously  made  himself  their  official 
accomplice. 

Yet  this  strange  man,  because  he  has  a  vision 
one  day,  at  once,  and  with  equally  headlong  zeal, 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM  :  A   REJOINDER  283 

flies  to  the  opposite  pole  of  opinion.  And  he  is 
most  careful  to  tell  us  that  he  abstained  from  any 
re-examination  of  the  facts. 

Immediately  I  conferred  not  with  flesh  and  blood  ;  neither 
went  I  up  to  Jerusalem  to  them  which  were  Apostles  before  me  ; 
but  I  went  away  into  Arabia.     (Galatians  i.  16,  17.) 

I  do  not  presume  to  quarrel  with  Paul's 
procedure.  If  it  satisfied  him,  that  was  his  affair ; 
and,  if  it  satisfies  anyone  else,  I  am  not  called  upon 
to  dispute  the  right  of  that  person  to  be  satisfied. 
But  I  certainly  have  the  right  to  say  that  it  would 
not  satisfy  me,  in  like  case ;  that  I  should  be  very 
much  ashamed  to  pretend  that  it  could,  or  ought 
to,  satisfy  me  ;  and  that  I  can  entertain  but  a  very 
low  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  evidence  of  people 
who  are  to  be  satisfied  in  this  fashion,  when 
questions  of  objective  fact,  in  which  their  faith  is 
interested,  are  concerned.  So  that  when  I  am 
called  upon  to  believe  a  great  deal  more  than  the 
oldest  gospel  tells  me  about  the  final  events  of  the 
history  of  Jesus  on  the  authority  of  Paul  (1 
Corinthians  xv.  5-8)  I  must  pause.  Did  he  think 
it,  at  any  subsequent  time,  worth  while  "  to  confer 
with  flesh  and  blood,"  or,  in  modern  phrase,  to 
re-examine  the  facts  for  himself  ?  or  was  he  ready 
to  accept  anything  that  fitted  in  with  his 
preconceived  ideas  ?  Does  he  mean,  when  he 
speaks  of  all  the  appearances  of  Jesus  after  the 
crucifixion  as  if  they  were  of  the  same  kind,  that 


284  AGNOSTICISM  :  A  REJOINDER  vm 

they  were  all  visions,  like  the  manifestation  to 
himself  ?  And,  finally,  how  is  this  account  to  be 
reconciled  with  those  in  the  first  and  third 
gospels — which,  as  we  have  seen,  disagree  with 
one  another  ? 

Until  these  questions  are  satisfactorily  answered, 
I  am  afraid  that,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  Paul's 
testimony  cannot  be  seriously  regarded,  except  as 
it  may  afford  evidence  of  the  state  of  traditional 
opinion  at  the  time  at  which  he  wrote,  say 
between  55  and  60  A.D. ;  that  is,  more  than 
twenty  years  after  the  event ;  a  period  much  more 
than  sufficient  for  the  development  of  any  amount 
of  mythology  about  matters  of  which  nothing  was 
really  known.  A  few  years  later,  among  the  con- 
temporaries and  neighbours  of  the  Jews,  and,  if 
the  most  probable  interpretation  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse can  be  trusted,  among  the  followers  of  Jesus 
also,  it  was  fully  believed,  in  spite  of  all  the 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  the  Emperor  Nero 
was  not  really  dead,  but  that  he  was  hidden  away 
somewhere  in  the  East,  and  would  speedily  come 
again  at  the  head  of  a  great  army,  to  be  revenged 
upon  his  enemies.1 

Thus,  I  conceive  that  I  have  shown  cause  for 
the  opinion  that  Dr.  Wace's  challenge  touching 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and 

1  King  Herod  had  not  the  least  difficulty  in  supposing  the 
resurrection  of  John  the  Baptist — "  John,  whom  I  beheaded, 
he  is  risen  "  (Mark  vi.  16). 


vin  agnosticism:  a  rejoinder  285 

the  Passion  was  more  valorous  than  discreet. 
After  all  this  discussion,  I  am  still  at  the  agnostic 
point.  Tell  me,  first,  what  Jesus  can  be  proved 
to  have  been,  said,  and  done,  and  I  will  say 
whether  I  believe  hirn,  or  in  him,1  or  not.  As  Dr. 
Wace  admits  that  I  have  dissipated  his  lingering 
shade  of  unbelief  about  the  bedevilment  of  the 
Gadarene  pigs,  he  might  have  done  something  to 
help  mine.  Instead  of  that,  he  manifests  a  total 
want  of  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  obstacles 
which  impede  the  conversion  of  his  "  infidels." 

The  truth  I  believe  to  be,  that  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  arriviDg  at  a  sure  conclusion  as  to 
these  matters,  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  or  any  other  data  offered  by 
the  Synoptic  gospels  (and  a  fortiori  from  the 
fourth  gospel),  are  insuperable.  Every  one  of 
these  records  is  coloured  by  the  prepossessions  of 
those  among  whom  the  primitive  traditions  arose, 
and  of  those  by  whom  they  were  collected  and 
edited  :  and  the  difficulty  of  making  allowance  for 
these  prepossessions  is  enhanced  by  our  ignorance 
of  the  exact  dates  at  which  the  documents  were 
first  put  together;  of  the  extent  to  which  they 


1  I  am  very  sorry  for  the  interpolated  "  in,"  because  citation 
ought  to  be  accurate  in  small  things  as  in  great.  But  what 
difference  it  makes  whether  one  "believes  Jesus"  or  "believes 
in  Jesus"  much  thought  has  not  enabled  me  to  discover.  If 
you  "  believe  him  "  you  must  believe  him  to  be  what  he  pro- 
fessed to  be — that  is,  "believe  in  him;"  and  if  you  "believe 
in  him"  you  must  necessarily  "  believe  him." 


286  agnosticism:  a  rejoinder  vm 

have  been  subsequently  worked  over  and  inter- 
polated ;  and  of  the  historical  sense,  or  want  of 
sense,  and  the  dogmatic  tendencies  of  their 
compilers  and  editors.  Let  us  see  if  there  is  any- 
other  road  which  will  take  us  into  something 
better  than  negation. 

There  is  a  widespread  notion  that  the  "  primi- 
tive Church,"  while  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Apostles  and  their  immediate  successors,  was  a 
sort  of  dogmatic  dovecot,  pervaded  by  the  most 
loving  unity  and  doctrinal  harmony.  Protestants, 
especially,  are  fond  of  attributing  to  themselves 
the  merit  of  being  nearer  "the  Church  of  the 
Apostles "  than  their  neighbours ;  and  they  are 
the  less  to  be  excused  for  their  strange  delusion 
because  they  are  great  readers  of  the  documents 
which  prove  the  exact  contrary.  The  fact  is  that, 
in  the  course  of  the  first  three  centuries  of  its 
existence,  the  Church  rapidly  underwent  a  process 
of  evolution  of  the  most  remarkable  character, 
the  final  stage  of  which  is  far  more  different  from 
the  first  than  Anglicanism  is  from  Quakerism. 
The  key  to  the  comprehension  of  the  problem 
of  the  origin  of  that  which  is  now  called 
"  Christianity,"  and  its  relation  to  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  lies  here.  Nor  can  we  arrive  at  any 
sound  conclusion  as  to  what  it  is  probable  that 
Jesus  actually  said  and  did,  without  being  clear  on 
this  head.  By  far  the  most  important  and 
subsequently  influential  steps  in  the  evolution  of 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDER  287 

Christianity  took  place  in  the  course  of  the 
century,  more  or  less,  which  followed  upon  the 
crucifixion.  It  is  almost  the  darkest  period  of 
Church  history,  but,  most  fortunately,  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end  of  the  period  are  brightly 
illuminated  by  the  contemporary  evidence  of  two 
writers  of  whose  historical  existence  there  is  no 
doubt,1  and  against  the  genuineness  of  whose 
most  important  works  there  is  no  widely-admitted 
objection.  These  are  Justin,  the  philosopher  and 
martyr,  and  Paul,  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  I 
shall  call  upon  these  witnesses  only  to  testify  to 
the  condition  of  opinion  among  those  who  called 
themselves  disciples  of  Jesus  in  their  time. 

Justin,  in  his  Dialogue  with  Trypho  the  Jew, 
which  was  written  somewhere  about  the  middle  of 
the  second  century,  enumerates  certain  categories 
of  persons  who,  in  his  opinion,  will,  or  will  not,  be 
saved.2     These  are  : — 

1.  Orthodox  Jews  who  refuse  to  believe  that 
Jesus  is  the  Christ.     Act  Saved. 

2.  Jews  who  observe  the  Law ;  believe  Jesus  to 
be  the  Christ ;  but  who  insist  on  the  observance 
of  the  Law  by  Gentile  converts.     Not  Saved. 

3.  Jews  who  observe  the  Law ;  believe  Jesus  to 

1  True  for  Justin  :  but  there  is  a  school  of  theological  critics, 
who  more  or  less  question  the  historical  reality  of  Paul,  and  the 
genuineness  of  even  the  four  cardinal  epistles. 

2  See  Dial,  cum  Tryphone,  §  47  and  §  35.  It  is  to  he  under- 
stood that  Justin  does  not  arrange  these  categories  in  order,  as  I 
have  done. 

134 


288  AGNOSTICISM  :  A    REJOINDER  vm 

be  the  Christ,  and  hold  that  Gentile  converts 
need  not  observe  the  Law.  Saved  (in  Justin's 
opinion ;  but  some  of  his  fellow-Christians  think 
the  contrary). 

4.  Gentile  converts  to  the  belief  in  Jesus  as  the 
Christ,  who  observe  the  Law.     Saved  (possibly). 

5.  Gentile  believers  in  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  who 
do  not  observe  the  Law  themselves  (except  so  far 
as  the  refusal  of  idol  sacrifices),  but  do  not 
consider  those  who  do  observe  it  heretics.  Saved 
(this  is  Justin's  own  view). 

6.  Gentile  believers  who  do  not  observe  the 
Law,  except  in  refusing  idol  sacrifices,  and  hold 
those  who  do  observe  it  to  be  heretics.     Saved. 

7.  Gentiles  who  believe  Jesus  to  be  the  Christ 
and  call  themselves  Christians,  but  who  eat  meats 
sacrificed  to  idols.     Not  Saved. 

8.  Gentiles  who  disbelieve  in  Jesus  as  the 
Christ.     Not  Saved. 

Justin  does  not  consider  Christians  who  believe 
in  the  natural  birth  of  Jesus,  of  whom  he  implies 
that  there  is  a  respectable  minority,  to  be  heretics, 
though  he  himself  strongly  holds  the  preternatural 
birth  of  Jesus  and  his  pre-existence  as  the 
"  Logos  "  or  "  Word."  He  conceives  the  Logos  to 
be  a  second  God,  inferior  to  the  first,  unknowable 
God,  with  respect  to  whom  Justin,  like  Philo,  is 
a  complete  agnostic.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  not  re- 
garded by  Justin  as  a  separate  personality,  and 
is    often    mixed    up    with    the    "  Logos."      The 


vm  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDER  289 

doctrine  of  the  natural  immortality  of  the  soul  is, 
for  Justin,  a  heresy ;  and  he  is  as  firm  a  believer 
in  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  as  in  the 
speedy  Second  Coming  and  the  establishment  of 
the  millennium. 

This  pillar  of  the  Church  in  the  middle  of 
the  second  century — a  much- travelled  native  of 
Samaria — was  certainly  well  acquainted  with 
Rome,  probably  with  Alexandria ;  and  it  is  likely 
that  he  knew  the  state  of  opinion  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  Christian  world  as  well 
as  any  man  of  his  time.  If  the  various  categories 
above  enumerated  are  arranged  in  a  series 
thus : — 

Justin's  Christianity 


Orthodox      Judceo-Christianity  Idnfathytic 

Judaism     ^ ^ s  Christianity     Paganism 

I.        II.        III.        IV.        Y.       VI.        VII.        VIII. 

it  is  obvious  that  they  form  a  gradational  series 
from  orthodox  Judaism,  on  the  extreme  left,  to 
Paganism,  whether  philosophic  or  popular,  on  the 
extreme  right ;  and  it  will  further  be  observed 
that,  while  Justin's  conception  of  Christianity  is 
very  broad,  he  rigorously  excludes  two  classes  of 
persons  who,  in  his  time,  called  themselves 
Christians;  namely,  those  who  insist  on  circum- 
cision and  other  observances  of  the  Law  on  the 
part  of  Gentile  converts ;  that  is  to  say,  the  strict 
Judseo-Christians  (II.)  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
those  who  assert  the  lawfulness  of  eating  meat 


290  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDER  vin 

offered  to  idols — whether  they  are  Gnostic  or  not 
(VII.)  These  last  I  have  called  "  idolothytic " 
Christians,  because  I  cannot  devise  a  better 
name,  not  because  it  is  strictly  defensible  etymo- 
logically. 

At  the  present  moment,  I  do  not  suppose  there 
is  an  English  missionary  in  any  heathen  land  who 
would  trouble  himself  whether  the  materials  of  his 
dinner  had  been  previously  offered  to  idols  or  not. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  suppose  there  is  no  Protestant 
sect  within  the  pale  of  orthodoxy,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  Roman  and  Greek  Churches,  which  would 
hesitate  to  declare  the  practice  of  circumcision  and 
the  observance  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath  and  dietary 
rules,  shockingly  heretical. 

Modern  Christianity  has,  in  fact,  not  only  shifted 
far  to  the  right  of  Justin's  position,  but  it  is  of 
much  narrower  compass. 

Justin 


Judceo-Chrislianity                      Modern  Christianity  Paganism 
Judaism        / 's v.  — '~N -^ 

I.        II.        III.        IV.       V.       VI.       VII.        VIII. 

For,  though  it  includes  VII.,  and  even,  in  saint 
and  relic  worship,  cuts  a  "  monstrous  cantle  "  out 
of  paganism,  it  excludes,  not  only  all  Judaso- 
Christians,  but  all  who  doubt  that  such  are 
heretics.  Ever  since  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
Inquisition  would  have  cheerfully  burned,  and  in 
Spain  did  abundantly  burn,  all  persons  who  came 
under  the  categories  II.,  III.   IV.,  V.     And   the 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM  :   A   REJOINDER  291 

wolf  would  play  the  same  havoc  now,  if  it  could 
only  get  its  blood-stained  jaws  free  from  the 
muzzle  imposed  by  the  secular  arm. 

Further,  there  is  not  a  Protestant  body  except 
the  Unitarian,  which  would  not  declare  Justin 
himself  a  heretic,  on  account  of  his  doctrine  of  the 
inferior  godship  of  the  Logos;  while  I  am  very 
much  afraid  that,  in  strict  logic,  Dr.  Wace  would 
be  under  the  necessity,  so  painful  to  him,  of  call- 
ing him  an  "infidel,"  on  the  same  and  on  other 
grounds. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  our  other  authority.  If 
there  is  any  result  of  critical  investigations  of  the 
sources  of  Christianity  which  is  certain,1  it  is  that 
Paul  of  Tarsus  wrote  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
somewhere  between  the  years  55  and  60  A.D.,  that 
is  to  say,  roughly,  twenty,  or  five-and-twenty  years 
after  the  crucifixion.  If  this  is  so,  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians  is  one  of  the  oldest,  if  not  the  very 
oldest,  of  extant  documentary  evidences  of  the 
state  of  the  primitive  Church.  And,  be  it  observed, 
if  it  is  Paul's  writing,  it  unquestionably  furnishes 
us  with  the  evidence  of  a  participator  in  the 
transactions  narrated.  With  the  exception  of  two 
or  three  of  the  other  Pauline  Epistles,  there  is  not 
one  solitary  book  in  the  New  Testament  of  the 
authorship  and  authority  of  which  we  have  such 
good  evidence. 

1  I  guard  myself  against  being  supposed  to  affirm  that  even 
the  four  cardinal  epistles  of  Paul  may  not  have  been  seriously 
tampered  with.     See  note  1,  p.  287  above. 


292  AGNOSTICISM:   A   REJOINDER  viil 

And  what  is  the  state  of  things  we  find  dis- 
closed ?  A  bitter  quarrel,  in  his  account  of  which 
Paul  by  no  means  minces  matters,  or  hesitates  to 
hurl  defiant  sarcasms  against  those  who  were 
"  reputed  to  be  pillars "  :  James  "  the  brother  of 
the  Lord,"  Peter,  the  rock  on  whom  Jesus  is  said 
to  have  built  his  Church,  and  John,  "the  beloved 
disciple."  And  no  deference  toward  "  the  rock  " 
withholds  Paul  from  charging  Peter  to  his  face  with 
"  dissimulation." 

The  subject  of  the  hot  dispute  was  simply  this. 
Were  Gentile  converts  bound  to  obey  the  Law  or 
not  ?  Paul  answered  in  the  negative  ;  and,  acting 
upon  his  opinion,  he  had  created  at  Antioch  (and 
elsewhere)  a  specifically  "  Christian  "  community, 
the  sole  qualifications  for  admission  into  w7hich  were 
the  confession  of  the  belief  that  Jesus  was  the 
Messiah,  and  baptism  upon  that  confession.  In 
the  epistle  in  question,  Paul  puts  this — his 
"  gospel,"  as  he  calls  it — in  its  most  extreme  form. 
Not  only  does  he  deny  the  necessity  of  conformity 
with  the  Law,  but  he  declares  such  conformity  to 
have  a  negative  value.  "  Behold,  I,  Paul,  say 
unto  you,  that  if  ye  receive  circumcision,  Christ 
will  profit  you  nothing "  (Galatians  v.  2).  He 
calls  the  legal  observances  "  beggarly  rudiments," 
and  anathematises  every  one  who  preaches  to  the 
Galatians  any  other  gospel  than  his  own.  That  is 
to  say,  by  direct  consequence,  he  anathematises  the 
Nazarenes  of  Jerusalem,  whose  zeal  for  the  Law  is 


vill  AGNOSTICISM:   A  BEJOINDER  293 

testified  by  James  in  a  passage  of  the  Acts  cited 
farther  on.  In  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
dealing  with  the  question  of  eating  meat  offered  to 
idols,  it  is  clear  that  Paul  himself  thinks  it  a 
matter  of  indifference ;  but  he  advises  that  it 
should  not  be  done,  for  the  sake  of  the  weaker 
brethren.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Nazarenes  of 
Jerusalem  most  strenuously  opposed  Paul's 
"  gospel,"  insisting  on  every  convert  becoming  a 
regular  Jewish  proselyte,  and  consequently  on  his 
observance  of  the  whole  Law ;  and  this  party  was  led 
by  James  and  Peter  and  John  (Galatians  ii.  9) 
Paul  does  hot  suggest  that  the  question  of  principle 
was  settled  by  the  discussion  referred  to  in  Gala- 
tians. All  he  says  is,  that  it  ended  in  the  prac- 
tical agreement  that  he  and  Barnabas  should  do 
as  they  had  been  doing,  in  respect  to  the  Gentiles ; 
while  James  and  Peter  and  John  should  deal  in 
their  own  fashion  with  Jewish  converts.  After- 
wards, he  complains  bitterly  of  Peter,  because, 
when  on  a  visit  to  Antioch,  he,  at  first,  inclined  to 
Paul's  view  and  ate  with  the  Gentile  converts ; 
but  when  "  certain  came  from  James,"  "  drew  back, 
and  separated  himself,  fearing  them  that  were  of  the 
circumcision.  And  the  rest  of  the  Jews  dissembled 
likewise  with  him  ;  insomuch  that  even  Barnabas 
was  carried  away  with  their  dissimulation" 
(Galatians  ii.  12-13). 

There  is  but  one  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from 
Paul's  account  of  this  famous  dispute,  the  settle- 


294  AGNOSTICISM  :   A   REJOINDER  vill 

ment  of  which  determined  the  fortunes  of  the 
nascent  religion.  It  is  that  the  disciples  at  Jeru- 
salem, headed  by  "  James,  the  Lord's  brother,"  and 
by  the  leading  apostles,  Peter  and  John,  were  strict 
Jews,  who  had  objected  to  admit  any  converts 
into  their  body,  unless  these,  either  by  birth,  or  by 
becoming  proselytes,  were  also  strict  Jews.  In 
fact,  the  sole  difference  between  James  and  Peter 
and  John,  with  the  body  of  the  disciples  whom 
they  led  and  the  Jews  by  whom  they  were 
surrounded,  and  with  whom  they,  for  many  years, 
shared  the  religious  observances  of  the  Temple, 
was  that  they  believed  that  the  Messiah,  whom 
the  leaders  of  the  nation  yet  looked  for,  had 
already  come  in  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  hardly  a  very  trust- 
worthy history ;  it  is  certainly  of  later  date  than 
the  Pauline  Epistles,  supposing  them  to  be 
genuine.  And  the  writer's  version  of  the  confer- 
ence of  which  Paul  gives  so  graphic  a  description, 
if  that  is  correct,  is  unmistakably  coloured  with 
all  the  art  of  a  reconciler,  anxious  to  cover  up  a 
scandal.  But  it  is  none  the  less  instructive  on 
this  account.  The  judgment  of  the  "  council " 
delivered  by  James  is  that  the  Gentile  converts 
shall  merely  "  abstain  from  things  sacrificed  to 
idols,  and  from  blood  and  from  things  strangled, 
and  from  fornication."  But  notwithstanding  the 
accommodation  in  which  the  writer  of  the  Acts 
would  have  us  believe,  the  Jerusalem  Church  held 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDER  295 

to  its  endeavour  to  retain  the  observance  of  the 
Law.  Long  after  the  conference,  some  time  after 
the  writing  of  the  Epistles  to  the  Galatians  and 
Corinthians,  and  immediately  after  the  despatch  of 
that  to  the  Romans,  Paul  makes  his  last  visit  to 
Jerusalem,  and  presents  himself  to  James  and  all 
the  elders.  And  this  is  what  the  Acts  tells  us  of 
the  interview : — 

And  they  said  unto  him,  Thou  seest,  brother,  how  many- 
thousands  [or  myriads]  there  are  among  the  Jews  of  them  which 
have  believed  ;  and  they  are  all  zealous  for  the  law  ;  and  they 
have  been  informed  concerning  thee,  that  thou  teachest  all  the 
Jews  which, are  among  the  Gentiles  to  forsake  Moses,  telling 
them  not  to  circumcise  their  children,  neither  to  walk  after  the 
customs.     (Acts  xxi.  20,  21.) 

They  therefore  request  that  he  should  perform  a 
certain  public  religious  act  in  the  Temple,  in 
order  that 

all  shall  know  that  there  is  no  truth  in  the  things  whereof  they 
have  been  informed  concerning  thee ;  but  that  thou  thyself 
walkest  orderly,  keeping  the  law  {ibid.  24). 1 

How  far  Paul  could  do  what  he  is  here  re- 
quested to  do,  and  which  the  writer  of  the  Acts 
goes  on  to  say  he  did,  with  a  clear  conscience,  if  he 
wrote  the  Epistles  to  the  Galatians  and  Corinth- 
ians, I  may  leave  any  candid  reader  of  these 
epistles  to  decide.     The  point  to  which  I  wish  to 

1  [Paul,  in  fact,  is  required  to  commit  in  Jerusalem,  an  act 
of  tbe  same  character  as  that  which  he  brands  as  "dissimula- 
tion "  on  the  pait  of  Peter  in  Antioch.] 


296  AGNOSTICISM:   A  REJOINDER  vm 

direct  attention  is  the  declaration  that  the  Jeru- 
salem Church,  led  by  the  brother  of  Jesus  and  by 
his  personal  disciples  and  friends,  twenty  years 
and  more  after  his  death,  consisted  of  strict  and 
zealous  Jews. 

Tertullus,  the  orator,  caring  very  little  about 
the  internal  dissensions  of  the  followers  of  Jesus, 
speaks  of  Paul  as  a  "  ringleader  of  the  sect  of  the 
Nazarenes"  (Acts  xxiv.  5),  which  must  have 
affected  James  much  in  the  same  way  as  it  would 
have  moved  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in 
George  Fox's  day,  to  hear  the  latter  called  a 
"ringleader  of  the  sect  of  Anglicans."  In  fact, 
"  Nazarene  "  was,  as  is  well  known,  the  distinctive 
appellation  applied  to  Jesus ;  his  immediate 
followers  were  known  as  Nazarenes;  while  the 
congregation  of  the  disciples,  and,  later,  of  converts 
at  Jerusalem — the  Jerusalem  Church — was  em- 
phatically the  "  sect  of  the  Nazarenes,"  no  more, 
in  itself,  to  be  regarded  as  anything  outside 
Judaism  than  the  sect  of  the  Sadducees,  or  that 
of  the  Essenes.1  In  fact,  the  tenets  of  both  the 
Sadducees  and  the  Essenes  diverged  much  more 
widely  from  the  Pharisaic  standard  of  orthodoxy 
than  Nazarenism  did. 

Let  us  consider  the  position  of  affairs  now  (a.d. 
50-GO)    in   relation    to   that   which    obtained    in 

1  All  this  was  quite  clearly  pointed  out  by  Ritschl  nearly 
forty  years  ago.  See  Die  Entstehung  der  alt-katholischc,  Xirche 
(1850),  p.  108. 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM:   A  REJOINDER  297 

Justin's  time,  a  century  later.  It  is  plain  that 
the  Nazarenes — presided  over  by  James,  "  the 
brother  of  the  Lord,"  and  comprising  within  their 
body  all  the  twelve  apostles — belonged  to  Justin's 
second  category  of  "  Jews  who  observe  the  Law, 
believe  Jesus  to  be  the  Christ,  but  who  insist  on 
the  observance  of  the  Law  by  Gentile  converts," 
up  till  the  time  at  which  the  controversy  reported 
by  Paul  arose.  They  then,  according  to  Paul, 
simply  allowed  him  to  form  his  congregations  of 
non -legal  Gentile  converts  at  Antioch  and  else- 
where ;  and  it  would  seem  that  it  was  to  these 
converts,  who  would  come  under  Justin's  fifth 
category,  that  the  title  of  "  Christian  "  was  first 
applied.  If  any  of  these  Christians  had  acted 
upon  the  more  than  half-permission  given  by 
Paul,  and  had  eaten  meats  offered  to  idols, 
they  would  have  belonged  to  Justin's  seventh 
category. 

Hence,  it  appears  that,  if  Justin's  opinion, 
which  was  probably  that  of  the  Church  generally 
in  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  was  correct, 
James  and  Peter  and  John  and  their  followers 
could  not  be  saved  ;  neither  could  Paul,  if  he 
carried  into  practice  his  views  as  to  the  indiffer- 
ence of  eating  meats  offered  to  idols.  Or,  to  put 
the  matter  another  way,  the  centre  of  gravity  of 
orthodoxy,  which  is  at  the  extreme  right  of  the 
series  in  the  nineteenth  century,  was  at  the  ex- 
treme left,  just   before   the   middle    of  the   first 


298  AGNOSTICISM:   A  REJOINDER  vill 

century,  when  the  "  sect  of  the  Nazarenes  "  consti- 
tuted the  whole  church  founded  by  Jesus  and  the 
apostles ;  while,  in  the  time  of  Justin,  it  lay  mid- 
way between  the  two.  It  is  therefore  a  profound 
mistake  to  imagine  that  the  Juda3o-Christians 
(Nazarenes  and  Ebionites)  of  later  times  were 
heretical  outgrowths  from  a  primitive  universalist 
"  Christianity."  On  the  contrary,  the  universalist 
'!  Christianity "  is  an  outgrowth  from  the 
primitive,  purely  Jewish,  Nazarenism ;  which, 
gradually  eliminating  all  the  ceremonial  and 
dietary  parts  of  the  Jewish  law,  has  thrust  aside 
its  parent,  and  all  the  intermediate  stages  of  its 
development,  into  the  position  of  damnable 
heresies. 

Such  being  the  case,  we  are  in  a  position  to 
form  a  safe  judgment  of  the  limits  within  which 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  must  have  been 
confined.  Ecclesiastical  authority  would  have  us 
believe  that  the  words  which  are  on  ven  at  the  end 
of  the  first  Gospel,  "  Go  ye,  therefore,  and  make 
disciples  of  all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the 
name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  are  part  of  the  last  commands  of 
Jesus,  issued  at  the  moment  of  his  parting  with 
the  eleven.  If  so,  Peter  and  John  must  have 
heard  these  words ;  they  are  too  plain  to  be  mis- 
understood ;  and  the  occasion  is  too  solemn  for 
them  ever  to  be  forgotten.  Yet  the  "  Acts  "  tells 
us  that  Peter  needed  a  vision  to  enable  him  so 


Vin  AGNOSTICISM  :   A   REJOIN  DEE  299 

much  as  to  baptize  Cornelius;  and  Paul,  in  the 
Galatians,  knows  nothing  of  words  which  would 
have  completely  borne  him  out  as  against  those 
who,  though  they  heard,  must  be  supposed  to 
have  either  forgotten,  or  ignored  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  Peter  and  John,  who  are  supposed  to 
have  heard  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  know 
nothing  of  the  saying  that  Jesus  had  not  come  to 
destroy  the  Law,  but  that  every  jot  and  tittle  of 
the  Law  must  be  fulfilled,  which  surely  would 
have  been  pretty  good  evidence  for  their  view  of 
the  question. 

We  are  sometimes  told  that  the  personal 
friends  and  daily  companions  of  Jesus  remained 
zealous  Jews  and  opposed  Paul's  innovations, 
because  they  were  hard  of  heart  and  dull  of 
comprehension.  This  hypothesis  is  hardly  in 
accordance  with  the  concomitant  faith  of  those 
who  adopt  it,  in  the  miraculous  insight  and  super- 
human sagacity  of  their  Master  ;  nor  do  I  see  any 
way  of  getting  it  to  harmonise  with  the  orthodox 
postulate ;  namely,  that  Matthew  was  the  author 
of  the  first  gospel  and  John  of  the  fourth.  If  that 
is  so,  then,  most  assuredly,  Matthew  was  no 
dullard ;  and  as  for  the  fourth  gospel — a  theo- 
sophic  romance  of  the  first  order — it  could  have 
been  written  by  none  but  a  man  of  remarkable 
literary  capacity,  who  had  drunk  deep  of 
Alexandrian  philosophy.  Moreover,  the  doctrine 
of  the  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel  is  more  remote 


300  agnosticism:  A  REJOINDER  vill 

from  that  of  the  "  sect  of  the  Nazarenes  "  than  is 
that  of  Paul  himself.  I  am  quite  aware  that 
orthodox  critics  have  been  capable  of  maintaining 
that  John,  the  Nazarene,  who  was  probably  well 
past  fifty  years  of  age,  when  he  is  supposed  to  have 
written  the  most  thoroughly  Judaising  book  in 
the  New  Testament — the  Apocalypse — in  the 
roughest  of  Greek,  underwent  an  astounding 
metamorphosis  of  both  doctrine  and  style  by  the 
time  he  reached  the  ripe  age  of  ninety  or  so,  and 
provided  the  world  with  a  history  in  which  the 
acutest  critic  cannot  [always]  make  out  where  the 
speeches  of  Jesus  end  and  the  text  of  the  narrative 
begins ;  while  that  narrative  is  utterly  irreconcil- 
able, in  regard  to  matters  of  fact,  with  that  of  his 
fellow-apostle,  Matthew. 

The  end  of  the  whole  matter  is  this  : — The 
"sect  of  the  Nazarenes,"  the  brother  and  the 
immediate  followers  of  Jesus,  commissioned  by 
him  as  apostles,  and  those  who  were  taught  by 
them  up  to  the  year  50  A.D.,  were  not  "Christians" 
in  the  sense  in  which  that  term  has  been  under- 
stood ever  since  its  asserted  origin  at  Antioch,  but 
Jews — strict  orthodox  Jews — whose  belief  in  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus  never  led  to  their  exclusion 
from  the  Temple  services,  nor  would  have  shut 
them   out  from   the  wide  embrace  of  Judaism.1 

1  "If  every  one  was  baptized  as  soon  as  lie  acknowledged  J  esns 
to  be  the  Messiah,  the  first  Christians  can  have  been  aware  of  no 
other  essential  differences  from  the  Jews." — Zeller,  Vortrage 
(1865),  p.  26. 


vni  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDER  301 

The  open  proclamation  of  their  special  view  about 
the  Messiah  was  doubtless  offensive  to  the 
Pharisees,  just  as  rampant  Low  Churchism  is 
offensive  to  bigoted  High  Churchism  in  our  own 
country ;  or  as  any  kind  of  dissent  is  offensive  to 
fervid  religionists  of  all  creeds.  To  the  Sadducees, 
no  doubt,  the  political  danger  of  any  Messianic 
movement  was  serious  ;  and  they  would  have  been 
glad  to  put  down  Nazarenism,  lest  it  should  end 
in  useless  rebellion  against  their  Roman  masters, 
like  that  other  Galilean  movement  headed  by 
Judas,  a  generation  earlier.  Galilee  was  always  a 
hotbed  of  seditious  enthusiasm  against  the  rule  of 
Rome ;  and  high  priest  and  procurator  alike  had 
need  to  keep  a  sharp  eye  upon  natives  of  that 
district.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  Nazarenes 
were  but  little  troubled  for  the  first  twenty  years 
of  their  existence ;  and  the  undying  hatred  of  the 
Jews  against  those  later  converts,  whom  they 
regarded  as  apostates  and  fautors  of  a  sham 
Judaism,  was  awakened  by  Paul.  From  their 
point  of  view,  he  was  a  mere  renega.de  Jew, 
opposed  alike  to  orthodox  Judaism  and  to  ortho- 
dox Nazarenism ;  and  whose  teachings  threatened 
Judaism  with  destruction.  And,  from  their  point 
of  view,  they  were  quite  right.  In  the  course  of 
a  century,  Pauline  influences  had  a  large  share  in 
driving  primitive  Nazarenism  from  being  the  very 
heart  of  the  new  faith  into  the  position  of  scouted 
error ;  and  the  spirit  of  Paul's  doctrine  continued 


302  AGNOSTICISM  :   A  REJOINDER  viil 

its  work  of  driving  Christianity  farther  and  farther 
away  from  Judaism,  until  "  meats  offered  to  idols  " 
might  be  eaten  without  scruple,  while  the 
Nazarene  methods  of  observing  even  the  Sabbath, 
or  the  Passover,  were  branded  with  the  mark  of 
Judaising  heresy. 

But  if  the  primitive  ISTazarenes  of  whom  the 
Acts  speaks  were  orthodox  Jews,  what  sort  of 
probability  can  there  be  that  Jesus  was  anything 
else  ?  How  can  he  have  founded  the  universal 
religion  which  was  not  heard  of  till  twenty  years 
after  his  death  ? *  That  Jesus  possessed,  in  a  rare 
degree,  the  gift  of  attaching  men  to  his  person  and 
to  his  fortunes ;  that  lie  was  the  author  of  many 
a  striking  saying,  and  the  advocate  of  equity,  of 
love,  and  of  humility  ;  that  he  may  have  dis- 
regarded the  subtleties  of  the  bigots  for  legal 
observance,  and  appealed  rather  to  those  nobJe 
conceptions  of  religion  which  constituted  the  pith 
and  kernel  of  the  teaching  of  the  great  prophets 
of  his  nation  seven  hundred  years  earlier ;  and 
that,  in  the  last  scenes  of  his  career,  he  may  have 
embodied  the  ideal  sufferer  of  Isaiah,  may  be,  as 
I  think  it  is,  extremely  probable.  But  all  this 
involves  not  a  step  beyond  the  borders  of  orthodox 

1  Dr.  Harnack,  in  the  lately-published  second  edition  of  his 
Dogmenyeschichte,  says  (p.  39),  "Jesus  Christ  brought  forward 
no  new  doctrine  ;  "  and  again  (p.  65),  "  It  is  not  difficult  to  set 
against  every  portion  of  the  utterances  of  Jesus  an  observation 
which  deprives  him  of  originality."  See  also  Zusatz  4,  on  the 
same  page. 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM:    A  REJOINDER  303 

Judaism.  Again,  who  is  to  say  whether  Jesus 
proclaimed  himself  the  veritable  Messiah,'  ex- 
pected by  his  nation  since  the  appearance  of  the 
pseudo-prophetic  work  of  Daniel,  a  century  and  a 
half  before  his  time  ;  or  whether  the  enthusiasm 
of  his  followers  gradually  forced  him  to  assume 
that  position  ? 

But  one  thing  is  quite  certain  :  if  that  belief  in 
the  speedy  second  coming  of  the  Messiah  which 
was  shared  by  all  parties  in  the  primitive  Church, 
whether  Nazarene  or  Pauline;  which  Jesus  is 
made  to  prophesy,  over  and  over  again,  in  the 
Synoptic  gospels ;  and  which  dominated  the  life 
of  Christians  during  the  first  century  after  the 
crucifixion  ; — if  he  believed  and  taught  that,  then 
assuredly  he  was  under  an  illusion,  and  he  is  re- 
sponsible for  that  which  the  mere  effluxion  of  time 
has  demonstrated  to  be  a  prodigious  error. 

When  I  ventured  to  doubt  "whether  any 
Protestant  theologian  who  has  a  reputation  to 
lose  will  say  that  he  believes  the  Gadarene  story,'' 
it  appears  that  I  reckoned  without  Dr.  Wace, 
who,  referring  to  this  passage  in  my  paper, 
says : — 

He  will  judge  whether  I  fall  under  his  description ;  but  I 
repeat  that  I  believe  it,  and  that  he  has  removed  the  only  objec- 
tion to  my  believing  it  (p.  363). 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  set  myself  up  as  a  judge 

135 


304  AGNOSTICISM  :  A   REJOINDER  vm 

of  any  such  delicate  question  as  that  put  before 
me ;  but  I  think  I  may  venture  to  express  the 
conviction  that,  in  the  matter  of  courage,  Dr. 
Wace  has  raised  for  himself  a  monument  cere 
perennius.  For  really,  in  my  poor  judgment,  a 
certain  splendid  intrepidity,  such  as  one  admires 
in  the  leader  of  a  forlorn  hope,  is  manifested 
by  Dr.  Wace  when  he  solemnly  affirms  that  he 
believes  the  Gadarene  story  on  the  evidence 
offered.  I  feel  less  complimented  perhaps  than  I 
ought  to  do,  when  I  am  told  that  I  have  been  an 
accomplice  in  extinguishing  in  Dr.  Wace's  mind 
the  last  glimmer  of  doubt  which  common  sense 
may  have  suggested.  In  fact,  I  must  disclaim  all 
responsibility  for  the  use  to  which  the  information 
I  supplied  has  been  put.  I  formally  decline  to 
admit  that  the  expression  of  my  ignorance  whether 
devils,  in  the  existence  of  which  I  do  not  believe, 
if  they  did  exist,  might  or  might  not  be  made  to 
go  out  of  men  into  pigs,  can,  as  a  matter  of  logic, 
have  been  of  any  use  whatever  to  a  person  who 
already  believed  in  devils  and  in  the  historical 
accuracy  of  the  gospels. 

Of  the  Gadarene  story,  Dr.  Wace,  with  all 
solemnity  and  twice  over,  affirms  that  he  "  believes 
it."  I  am  sorry  to  trouble  him  further,  but  what 
does  he  mean  by  "  it  "  ?  Because  there  are  two 
stories,  one  in  "  Mark  "  and  "  Luke,"  and  the  other 
in  "  Matthew."  In  the  former,  which  I  quoted 
in   my   previous   paper,   there   is    one   possessed 


*7in  AGNOSTICISM:   A   REJOINDER  305 

man ;  in  the  latter  there  are  two.  The  story  is 
told  fully,  with  the  vigorous  homely  diction  and 
the  picturesque  details  of  a  piece  of  folklore,  in 
the  second  gospel.  The  immediately  antecedent 
event  is  the  storm  on  the  Lake  of  Gennesaret. 
The  immediately  consequent  events  are  the 
message  from  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue  and  the 
healing  of  the  woman  with  an  issue  of  blood. 
In  the  third  gospel,  the  order  of  events  is  exactly 
the  same,  and  there  is  an  extremely  close  general 
and  verbal  correspondence  between  the  narratives 
of  the  miracle.  Both  agree  in  stating  that  there 
was  only  one  possessed  man,  and  that  he  was 
the  residence  of  many  devils,  whose  name  was 
"  Legion." 

In  the  first  gospel,  the  event  which  immediately 
precedes  the  Gadarene  affair  is,  as  before,  the 
storm  ;  the  message  from  the  ruler  and  the  healing 
of  the  issue  are  separated  from  it  by  the  accounts 
of  the  healing  of  a  paralytic,  of  the  calling  of 
Matthew,  and  of  a  discussion  with  some  Pharisees. 
Again,  while  the  second  gospel  speaks  of  the 
country  of  the  "'  Gerasenes  "  as  the  locality  of  the 
event,  the  third  gospel  has  "  Gerasenes/' 
"  Gergesenes,"  and  "  Gadarenes "  in  different 
ancient  MSS.  ;  while  the  first  has  "  Gadarenes." 

The  really  important  points  to  be  noticed, 
however,  in  the  narrative  of  the  first  gospel,  are 
these — that  there  are  two  possessed  men  instead 
of  one;  and  that  while  the  story  is  abbreviated  by 


306  AGNOSTICISM:  A  REJOINDER  vin 

omissions,  what  there  is  of  it  is  often  verbally 
identical  with  the  corresponding  passages  in  the 
other  two  gospels.  The  most  unabashed  of 
reconcilers  cannot  well  say  that  one  man  is  the 
same  as  two,  or  two  as  one ;  and,  though  the 
suggestion  really  has  been  made,  that  two  different 
miracles,  agreeing  in  all  essential  particulars, 
except  the  number  of  the  possessed,  were  effected 
immediately  after  the  storm  on  the  lake,  I  should 
be  sorry  to  accuse  any  one  of  seriously  adopting  it. 
Nor  will  it  be  pretended  that  the  allegory  refuge 
is  accessible  in  this  particular  case. 

So,  when  Dr.  Wace  says  that  he  believes  in  the 
synoptic  evangelists'  account  of  the  miraculous 
bedevilment  of  swine,  I  may  fairly  ask  which  of 
them  does  he  believe  ?  Does  he  hold  by  the  one 
evangelist's  story,  or  by  that  of  the  two  evan- 
gelists ?  And  having  made  his  election,  what 
reasons  has  he  to  give  for  his  choice  ?  If  it  is 
suggested  that  the  witness  of  two  is  to  be  taken 
against  that  of  one,  not  only  is  the  testimony 
dealt  with  in  that  common-sense  fashion  against 
which  the  theologians  of  his  school  protest  so 
warmly ;  not  only  is  all  question  of  inspiration  at 
an  end,  but  the  further  inquiry  arises,  After  all,  is 
it  the  testimony  of  two  against  one  ?  Are  the 
authors  of  the  versions  in  the  second  and  third 
gospels  really  independent  witnesses  ?  In  order  to 
answer  this  question,  it  is  only  needful  to  place 
the  English  versions  of  the  two  side  by  side,  and 


VIII  AGNOSTICISM  :   A    REJOINDER  307 

compare  them  carefully.  It  will  then  be  seen  that 
the  coincidences  between  them,  not  merely  in 
substance,  but  in  arrangement,  and  in  the  use  of 
identical  words  in  the  same  order,  are  such,  that 
only  two  alternatives  are  conceivable :  either  one 
evangelist  freely  copied  from  the  other,  or  both 
based  themselves  upon  a  common  source,  which 
may  either  have  been  a  written  document,  or  a 
definite  oral  tradition  learned  by  heart.  Assuredly, 
these  two  testimonies  are  not  those  of  independent 
witnesses.  Further,  when  the  narrative  in  the 
first  gospel  is  compared  with  that  in  the  other  two, 
the  same  fact  comes  out. 

Supposing,  then,  that  Dr.  Wace  is  right  in  his 
assumption  that  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  wrote 
the  works  which  we  find  attributed  to  them  by 
tradition,  what  is  the  value  of  their  agreement, 
even  that  something  more  or  less  like  this  par- 
ticular miracle  occurred,  since  it  is  demonstrable, 
either  that  all  depend  on  some  antecedent  state- 
ment, of  the  authorship  of  which  nothing  is  known, 
or  that  two  are  dependent  upon  the  third  ? 

Dr.  Wace  says  he  believes  the  Gadarene  story ; 
whichever  version  of  it  he  accepts,  therefore,  he 
believes  that  Jesus  said  what  he  is  stated  in  all  the 
versions  to  have  said,  and  thereby  virtually 
declared  that  the  theory  of  the  nature  of  the 
spiritual  world  involved  in  the  story  is  true. 
Now  I  hold  that  this  theory  is  false,  that  it  is  a 
monstrous  and  mischievous  fiction  ;  and  I  unhesi- 


308  AGNOSTICISM  :  A  REJOINDER  vm 

tatingly  express  my  disbelief  in  any  assertion  that 
it  is  true,  by  whomsoever  made.  So  that,  if  Dr. 
Wace  is  right  in  his  belief,  he  is  also  quite  right 
in  classing  me  among  the  people  he  calls  "  infidels  "; 
and  although  I  cannot  fulfil  the  eccentric  expec- 
tation that  I  shall  glory  in  a  title  which,  from  my 
point  of  view,  it  would  be  simply  silly  to  adopt, 
I  certainly  shall  rejoice  not  to  be  reckoned  among 
"Christians  "  so  long  as  the  profession  of  belief  in 
such  stories  as  the  Gadarene  pig  affair,  on  the 
strength  of  a  tradition  of  unknown  origin,  of  which 
two  discrepant  reports,  also  of  unknown  origin, 
alone  remain,  forms  any  part  of  the  Christian 
faith.  And,  although  I  have,  more  than  once, 
repudiated  the  gift  of  prophecy,  yet  I  think  I 
may  venture  to  express  the  anticipation,  that  if 
"  Christians  "  generally  are  going  to  follow  the  line 
taken  by  Dr.  Wace,  it  will  not  be  long  before  all 
men  of  common  sense  qualify  for  a  place  amono- 
the  "  infidels." 


IX 

AGNOSTICISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

[1889] 

Nemo  ergo  ex  me  scire  quserat,  quod  me  nescire  scio,  nisi  forte 
ut  nescire  discat. — AtJGTJSTiNtrs,  Be  Civ.  Bei,  xii.  7. 

1  The  present  discussion  has  arisen  out  of  the  use, 
which  has  become  general  in  the  last  few  years,  of 
the  terms  "Agnostic"  and  "Agnosticism." 

The  people  who  call  themselves  "Agnostics" 
have  been  charged  with  doing  so  because  they 
have  not  the  courage  to  declare  themselves 
"  Infidels."  It  has  been  insinuated  that  they 
have  adopted  a  new  name  in  order  to  escape  the 
unpleasantness  which  attaches  to  their  proper 
denomination.  To  this  wholly  erroneous  imputa- 
tion, I  have  replied  by  showing  that  the  term 
*  Agnostic "  did,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  arise  in  a 
manner  which  negatives  it;  and  my  statement 
has  not  been,  and  cannot  be,  refuted.     Moreover, 

1  The  substance  of  a  paragraph  which  precedes  this  has  been 
transferred  to  the  Prologue. 


i'f 


310  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

speaking  for  myself,  and  without  impugning  the 
right  of  any  other  person  to  use  the  term  in 
another  sense,  I  further  say  that  Agnosticism  is 
not  properly  described  as  a  "  negative  "  creed,  nor 
indeed  as  a  creed  of  any  kind,  except  in  so  far  as 
it  expresses  absolute  faith  in  the  validity  of  a 
principle,  which  is  as  much  ethical  as  intellectual. 
This  principle  may  be  stated  in  various  ways,  but 
they  all  amount  to  this  :  that  it  is  wrong  for  a 
man  to  say  that  he  is  certain  of  the  objective 
truth  of  any  proposition  unless  he  can  produce 
evidence  which  logically  justifies  that  certainty. 
This  is  what  Agnosticism  asserts ;  and,  in  my 
opinion,  it  is  all  that  is  essential  to  Agnosticism. 
That  which  Agnostics  deny  and  repudiate,  as 
immoral,  is  the  contrary  doctrine,  that  there  are 
propositions  which  men  ought  to  believe,  without 
logically  satisfactory  evidence ;  and  that  repro- 
bation ought  to  attach  to  the  profession  of 
disbelief  in  such  inadequately  supported  pro- 
positions. The  justification  of  the  Agnostic 
principle  lies  in  the  success  which  follows  upon 
its  application,  whether  in  the  field  of  natural,  or 
in  that  of  civil,  history  ;  and  in  the  fact  that,  so 
far  as  these  topics  are  concerned,  no  sane  man 
thinks  of  denying  its  validity. 

Still  speaking  for  myself,  I  add,  that  though 
Agnosticism  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  a  creed,  except 
in  so  far  as  its  general  principle  is  concerned ;  yet 
that  the  application  of  that  principle  results  in 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIAN ITY  311 

the  denial  of,  or  the  suspension  of  judgment 
concerning,  a  number  of  propositions  respecting 
which  our  contemporary  ecclesiastical  "  gnostics  " 
profess  entire  certainty.  And,  in  so  far  as  these 
ecclesiastical  persons  can  be  justified  in  their  old- 
established  custom  (which  many  nowadays  think 
more  honoured  in  the  breach  than  the  observance) 
of  using  opprobrious  names  to  those  who  differ 
from  them,  I  fully  admit  their  right  to  call  me 
and  those  who  think  with  me  "  Infidels " ;  all  I 
have  ventured  to  urge  is  that  they  must  not 
expect  us  to  speak  of  ourselves  by  that  title. 

The  extent  of  the  region  of  the  uncertain,  the 
number  of  the  problems  the  investigation  of 
which  ends  in  a  verdict  of  not  proven,  will  vary 
according  to  the  knowledge  and  the  intellectual 
habits  of  the  individual  Agnostic.  I  do  not  very 
much  care  to  speak  of  anything  as  "  unknowable."  x 
What  I  am  sure  about  is  that  there  are  many 
topics  about  which  I  know  nothing ;  and  which, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  are  out  of  reach  of  my  faculties. 
But  whether  these  things  are  knowable  by  any 
one  else  is  exactly  one  of  those  matters  which  is 
beyond  my  knowledge,  though  I  may  have  a 
tolerably  strong  opinion  as  to  the  probabilities  of 
the  case.  Relatively  to  myself,  I  am  quite  sure 
that  the  region  of  uncertainty — the  nebulous 
country  in  which  words  play  the  part  of  realities 

1  I  confess  that,  long  ago,  I  once  or  twice  made  this  mistake  ; 
even  to  the  waste  of  a  capital  '  U.'     1893. 


312  AGNOSTICISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY  ix 

— is  far  more  extensive  than  I  could  wish. 
Materialism  and  Idealism  ;  Theism  and  Atheism ; 
the  doctrine  of  the  soul  and  its  mortality  or 
immortality — appear  in  the  history  of  philosophy 
like  the  shades  of  Scandinavian  heroes,  eternally 
slaying  one  another  and  eternally  coming  to  life 
again  in  a  metaphysical  "  Nifelheim."  It  is 
getting  on  for  twenty-five  centuries,  at  least,  since 
mankind  began  seriously  to  give  their  minds  to 
these  topics.  Generation  after  generation,  phil- 
osophy has  been  doomed  to  roll  the  stone  uphill ; 
and,  just  as  all  the  world  swore  it  was  at  the  top, 
down  it  has  rolled  to  the  bottom  again.  All  this 
is  written  in  innumerable  books ;  and  he  who  will 
toil  through  them  will  discover  that  the  stone  is 
just  where  it  was  when  the  work  began.  Hume 
saw  this ;  Kant  saw  it ;  since  their  time,  more  and 
more  eyes  have  been  cleansed  of  the  films  which 
prevented  them  from  seeing  it;  until  now  the 
weight  and  number  of  those  who  refuse  to  be  the 
prey  of  verbal  mystifications  has  begun  to  tell  in 
practical  life. 

It  was  inevitable  that  a  conflict  should  arise 
between  Agnosticism  and  Theology ;  or  rather,  I 
ought  to  say,  between  Agnosticism  and  Ecclesias- 
ticism.  For  Theology,  the  science,  is  one  thing ; 
and  Ecclesiasticism,  the  championship  of  a  fore- 
gone conclusion  1  as  to  the  truth  of  a  particular 

1  "Let  us  maintain,  before  we  have  proved.     This  seeming 
paradox  is  the  secret  of  happiness"  (Dr.  Newman  :  Tract  85,  p.  85). 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  313 

form  of  Theology,  is  another.  With  scientific 
Theology,  Agnosticism  has  no  quarrel.  On  the 
contrary,  the  Agnostic,  knowing  too  well  the 
influence  of  prejudice  and  idiosyncrasy,  even  on 
those  who  desire  most  earnestly  to  be  impartial, 
can  wish  for  nothing  more  urgently  than  that  the 
scientific  theologian  should  not  only  be  at  perfect 
liberty  to  thresh  out  the  matter  in  his  own 
fashion ;  but  that  he  should,  if  he  can,  find  flaws 
in  the  Agnostic  position ;  and,  even  if  demonstra- 
tion is  not  to  be  had,  that  he  should  put,  in  their 
full  force,  the  grounds  of  the  conclusions  he  thinks 
probable.  The  scientific  theologian  admits  the 
Agnostic  principle,  however  widely  his  results 
may  differ  from  those  reached  by  the  majority  of 
Agnostics. 

But,  as  between  Agnosticism  and  Ecclesiasti- 
cism,  or,  as  our  neighbours  across  the  Channel 
call  it,  Clericalism,  there  can  be  neither  peace  nor 
truce.  The  Cleric  asserts  that  it  is  morally  wrong 
not  to  believe  certain  propositions,  whatever  the 
results  of  a  strict  scientific  investigation  of  the 
evidence  of  these  propositions.  He  tells  us  "  that 
religious  error  is,  in  itself,  of  an  immoral  nature."  * 
He  declares  that  he  has  prejudged  certain  con- 
clusions, and  looks  upon  those  who  show  cause 
for  arrest  of  judgment  as  emissaries  of  Satan.  It 
necessarily  follows  that,  for  him,  the  attainment 
of  faith,  not  the  ascertainment  of  truth,  is  the 
1  Dr.  Newman,  E^say  on  Development,  p.  357. 


314  AGNOSTICISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY  ix 

highest  aim  of  mental  life.  And,  on  careful 
analysis  of  the  nature  of  this  faith,  it  will  too 
often  be  found  to  be,  not  the  mystic  process  of 
unity  with  the  Divine,  understood  by  the  religious 
enthusiast ;  but  that  which  the  candid  simplicity 
of  a  Sunday  scholar  once  denned  it  to  be. 
"Faith,"  said  this  unconscious  plagiarist  of 
Tertullian,  "is  the  power  of  saying  you  believe 
things  which  are  incredible." 

Now  I,  and  many  other  Agnostics,  believe  that 
faith,  in  this  sense,  is  an  abomination  ;  and  though 
we  do  not  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  self-righteous- 
ness so  far  as  to  call  those  who  are  not  of  our  way 
of  thinking  hard  names,  we  do  feel  that  the 
disagreement  between  ourselves  and  those  who 
hold  this  doctrine  is  even  more  moral  than 
intellectual.  It  is  desirable  there  should  be  an 
end  of  any  mistakes  on  this  topic.  If  our  clerical 
opponents  were  clearly  aware  of  the  real  state  of 
the  case,  there  would  be  an  end  of  the  curious 
delusion,  which  often  appears  between  the  lines 
of  their  writings,  that  those  whom  they  are  so 
fond  of  calling  "  Infidels "  are  people  who  not 
only  ought  to  be,  but  in  their  hearts  are,  ashamed 
of  themselves.  It  would  be  discourteous  to  do 
more  than  hint  the  antipodal  opposition  of  this 
pleasant  dream  of  theirs  to  facts. 

The  clerics  and  their  lay  allies  commonly  tell 
us,  that  if  we  refuse  to  admit  that  there  is  good 
ground  for  expressing  definite  convictions  about 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY  315 

certain  topics,  the  bonds  of  human  society  will 
dissolve  and  mankind  lapse  into  savagery.  There 
are  several  answers  to  this  assertion.  One  is  that 
the  bonds  of  human  society  were  formed  without 
the  aid  of  their  theology ;  and,  in  the  opinion  of 
not  a  few  competent  judges,  have  been  weakened 
rather  than  strengthened  by  a  good  deal  of  it. 
Greek  science,  Greek  art,  the  ethics  of  old  Israel, 
the  social  organisation  of  old  Rome,  contrived  to 
come  into  being,  without  the  help  of  any  one  who 
believed  in  a  single  distinctive  article  of  the 
simplest  of  the  Christian  creeds.  The  science, 
the  art,  the  jurisprudence,  the  chief  political  and 
social  theories,  of  the  modern  world  have  grown 
out  of  those  of  Greece  and  Rome — not  by  favour 
of,  but  in  the  teeth  of,  the  fundamental  teachings 
of  early  Christianity,  to  which  science,  art,  and 
any  serious  occupation  with  the  things  of  this 
world,  were  alike  despicable. 

Again,  all  that  is  best  in  the  ethics  of  the 
modern  world,  in  so  far  as  it  has  not  grown  out 
of  Greek  thought,  or  Barbarian  manhood,  is  the 
direct  development  of  the  ethics  of  old  Israel. 
There  is  no  code  of  legislation,  ancient  or  modern, 
at  once  so  just  and  so  merciful,  so  tender  to  the 
weak  and  poor,  as  the  Jewish  law ;  and,  if  the 
Gospels  are  to  be  trusted,  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
himself  declared  that  he  taught  nothing  but  that 
which  lay  implicitly,  or  explicitly,  in  the  religious 
and  ethical  system  of  his  people. 


316  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

And  the  scribe  said  unto  him,  Of  a  truth,  Teacher,  thou 
hast  well  said  that  he  is  one  ;  and  there  is  none  other  but  he 
and  to  love  him  with  all  the  heart,  and  with  all  the  under- 
standing, and  with  all  the  strength,  and  to  love  his  neighbour 
as  himself,  is  much  more  than  all  whole  burnt  offerings  and 
sacrifices.     (Mark  xii.  32,  33. ) 


Here  is  the  briefest  of  summaries  of  the  teaching 
of  the  prophets  of  Israel  of  the  eighth  century ; 
does  the  Teacher,  whose  doctrine  is  thus  set  forth 
in  his  presence,  repudiate  the  exposition  ?  Nay ; 
we  are  told,  on  the  contrary,  that  Jesus  saw  that 
he  "  answered  discreetly,"  and  replied,  "  Thou  art 
not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God." 

So  that  I  think  that  even  if  the  creeds,  from 
the  so-called  "  Apostles ' "  to  the  so-called 
"  Athanasian,"  were  swept  into  oblivion ;  and  even 
if  the  human  race  should  arrive  at  the  conclusion 
that,  whether  a  bishop  washes  a  cup  or  leaves  it 
unwashed,  is  not  a  matter  of  the  least  consequence, 
it  will  get  on  very  well.  The  causes  which  have 
led  to  the  development  of  morality  in  mankind, 
which  have  guided  or  impelled  us  all  the  way 
from  the  savage  to  the  civilised  state,  will  not 
cease  to  operate  because  a  number  of  ecclesiastical 
hypotheses  turn  out  to  be  baseless.  And,  even  if 
the  absurd  notion  that  morality  is  more  the  child 
of  speculation  than  of  practical  necessity  and 
inherited  instinct,  had  any  foundation ;  if  all  the 
world  is  going  to  thieve,  murder,  and  otherwise 
misconduct   itself  as   soon   as  it   discovers    that 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  317 

certain  portions  of  ancient  history  are  mythical ; 
what  is  the  relevance  of  such  arguments  to  any 
one  who  holds  by  the  Agnostic  principle  ? 

Surely,  the  attempt  to  cast  out  Beelzebub  by  the 
aid  of  Beelzebub  is  a  hopeful  procedure  as  com- 
pared to  that  of  preserving  morality  by  the  aid  of 
immorality.  For  I  suppose  it  is  admitted  that  an 
Agnostic  may  be  perfectly  sincere,  may  be  com- 
petent, and  may  have  studied  the  question  at  issue 
with  as  much  care  as  his  clerical  opponents.  But, 
if  the  Agnostic  really  believes  what  he  says,  the 
"  dreadful  consequence  "  argufier  (consistently,  I 
admit,  with  his  own  principles)  virtually  asks  him 
to  abstain  from  telling  the  truth,  or  to  say  what 
he  believes  to  be  untrue,  because  of  the  supposed 
injurious  consequences  to  morality.  "  Beloved 
brethren,  that  we  may  be  spotlessly  moral,  before 
all  things  let  us  lie,"  is  the  sum  total  of  many  an 
exhortation  addressed  to  the  "  Infidel."  Now,  as 
I  have  already  pointed  out,  we  cannot  oblige  our 
exhorters.  We  leave  the  practical  application  of 
the  convenient  doctrines  of  "  Reserve  "  and  "  Non- 
natural  interpretation "  to  those  who  invented 
them. 

I  trust  that  I  have  now  made  amends  for  any 
ambiguity,  or  want  of  fulness,  in  my  previous  ex- 
position of  that  which  I  hold  to  be  the  essence  of 
the  Agnostic  doctrine.  Henceforward,  I  might 
hope  to  hear  no  more  of  the  assertion  that 
we  are  necessarily  Materialists,  Idealists,  Atheists, 


318  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

Theists,  or  any  other  ists,  if  experience  had  led  me 
to  think  that  the  proved  falsity  of  a  statement 
was  any  guarantee  against  its  repetition.  And 
those  who  appreciate  the  nature  of  our  position 
will  see,  at  once,  that  when  Ecclesiasticism 
declares  that  we  ought  to  believe  this,  that,  and 
the  other,  and  are  very  wicked  if  we  don't,  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  give  any  answer  but  this : 
We  have  not  the  slightest  objection  to  believe 
anything  you  like,  if  you  will  give  us  good  grounds 
for  belief;  but,  if  you  cannot,  we  must  respectfully 
refuse,  even  if  that  refusal  should  wreck  morality 
and  insure  our  own  damnation  several  times  over. 
We  are  quite  content  to  leave  that  to  the  decision 
of  the  future.  The  course  of  the  past  has  im- 
pressed us  with  the  firm  conviction  that  no  good 
ever  comes  of  falsehood,  and  we  feel  warranted  in 
refusing  even  to  experiment  in  that  direction. 

In  the  course  of  the  present  discussion  it  has 
been  asserted  that  the  "  Sermon  ou  the  Mount " 
and  the  "  Lord's  Prayer  "  furnish  a  summary  and 
condensed  view  of  the  essentials  of  the  teaching:  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  set  forth  by  himself.  Now  this 
supposed  Summa  of  Nazarene  theology  distinctly 
affirms  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  world,  of  a 
Heaven,  and  of  a  Hell  of  fire ;  it  teaches  the 
Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  malignity  of  the 
Devil ;  it  declares  the  superintending  providence  of 
the  former  and  our  need  of  deliverance  from  the 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  319 

machinations  of  the  latter ;  it  affirms  the  fact  of 
demoniac  possession  and  the  power  of  casting  out 
devils  by  the  faithful.  And,  from  these  premises, 
the  conclusion  is  drawn,  that  those  Agnostics  who 
deny  that  there  is  any  evidence  of  such  a  character 
as  to  justify  certainty,  respecting  the  existence  and 
the  nature  of  the  spiritual  world,  contradict  the 
express  declarations  of  Jesus.  I  have  replied  to 
this  argumentation  by  showing  that  there  isstroug 
reason  to  doubt  the  historical  accuracy  of  the 
attribution  to  Jesus  of  either  the  "  Sermon  on 
the  Mount "  or  the  "  Lord's  Prayer  "  ;  and,  there- 
fore, that  the  conclusion  in  question  is  not 
warranted,  at  any  rate,  on  the  grounds  set 
forth. 

But,  whether  the  Gospels  contain  trustworthy 
statements  about  this  and  other  alleged  historical 
facts  or  not,  it  is  quite  certain  that  from  them, 
taken  together  with  the  other  books  of  the  New 
Testament,  we  may  collect  a  pretty  complete 
exposition  of  that  theory  of  the  spiritual  world 
which  was  held  by  both  Nazarenes  and  Christians ; 
and  which  was  undoubtedly  supposed  by  them  to 
be  fully  sanctioned  by  Jesus,  though  it  is  just  as 
clear  that  they  did  not  imagine  it  contained  any 
revelation  by  him  of  something  heretofore  un- 
known. If  the  pneumatological  doctrine  which 
pervades  the  whole  New  Testament  is  nowhere 
systematically  stated,  it  is  everywhere  assumed. 
The  writers  of  the  Gospels  and  of  the  Acts  take  it 

136 


320  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  is 

for  granted,  as  a  matter  of  common  knowledge; 
and  it  is  easy  to  gather  from  these  sources  a 
series  of  propositions,  which  only  need  arrange- 
ment to  form  a  complete  system. 

In  this  system,  Man  is  considered  to  be  a 
duality  formed  of  a  spiritual  element,  the  soul ; 
and  a  corporeal1  element,  the  body.  And  this 
duality  is  repeated  in  the  Universe,  which  consists 
of  a  corporeal  world  embraced  and  interpenetrated 
by  a  spiritual  world.  The  former  consists  of  the 
earth,  as  its  principal  and  central  constituent,  with 
the  subsidiary  sun,  planets,  and  stars.  Above  the 
earth  is  the  air,  and  below  is  the  watery  abyss. 
Whether  the  heaven,  which  is  conceived  to  be 
above  the  air,  and  the  hell  in,  or  below,  the  sub- 
terranean deeps,  are  to  be  taken  as  corporeal  or 
incorjDoreal  is  not  clear.  However  this  may  be, 
the  heaven  and  the  air,  the  earth  and  the  abyss, 
are  peopled  by  innumerable  beings  analogous  in 
nature  to  the  spiritual  element  in  man,  and  these 
spirits  are  of  two  kinds,  good  and  bad.  The  chief 
of  the  good  spirits,  infinitely  superior  to  all  the 
others,  and  their  creator,  as  well  as  the  creator  of 
the  corporeal  world  and  of  the  bad  spirits,  is  God. 

1  Jt  is  by  no  means  to  be  assumed  that  "spiritual"  and  "cor- 
poreal "  are  exact  equivalents  of  "  immaterial  "  and  "  material  " 
in  the  minds  of  ancient  speculators  on  these  topics.  The 
"spiritual  body"  of  the  risen  dead  (1  Cor.  xv. )  is  not  the 
"natural"  "  flesh  and  blood"  body.  Paul  does  not  teach  the 
resurrection  of  the  body  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word 
"body";  a  fact,  often  overlooked,  but  pregnant  with  many 
consequences. 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  321 

His  residence  is  heaven,  where  he  is  surrounded 
by  the  ordered  hosts  of  good  spirits  ;  his  angels,  or 
messengers,  and  the  executors  of  his  will  through- 
out the  universe. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  chief  of  the  bad  spirits 
is  Satan,  the  devil  par  excellence.  He  and  his 
company  of  demons  are  free  to  roam  through  all 
parts  of  the  universe,  except  the  heaven.  These 
bad  spirits  are  far  superior  to  man  in  power  and 
subtlety ;  and  their  whole  energies  are  devoted  to 
bringing  physical  and  moral  evils  upon  him,  and 
to  thwarting,  so  far  as  their  power  goes,  the 
benevolent  intentions  of  the  Supreme  Being.  In 
fact,  the  souls  and  bodies  of  men  form  both  the 
theatre  and  the  prize  of  an  incessant  warfare 
between  the  good  and  the  evil  spirits — the  powers 
of  light  and  the  powers  of  darkness.  By  leading 
Eve  astray,  Satan  brought  sin  and  death  upon 
mankind.  As  the  gods  of  the  heathen,  the  demons 
are  the  founders  and  maintainers  of  idolatry ;  as 
the  "  powers  of  the  air  "  they  afflict  mankind  with 
pestilence  and  famine  ;  as  "  unclean  spirits  "  they 
cause  disease  of  mind  and  body. 

The  significance  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus,  in 
the  capacity  of  the  Messiah,  or  Christ,  is  the 
reversal  of  the  satanic  work  by  putting  an  end  to 
both  sin  and  death.  He  announces  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand,  when  the  "  Prince  of 
this  world  "  shall  be  finally  "  cast  out  "  (John  xii. 
31)  from  the  cosmos,  as  Jesus,  during  his  earthly 


322  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

career,  cast  him  out  from  individuals.  Then  will 
Satan  and  all  his  devilry,  along  with  the  wicked 
whom  they  have  seduced  to  their  destruction,  be 
hurled  into  the  abyss  of  unquenchable  fire — there 
to  endure  continual  torture,  without  a  hope  of 
winning  pardon  from  the  merciful  God,  their 
Father ;  or  of  moving  the  glorified  Messiah  to  one 
more  act  of  pitiful  intercession ;  or  even  of 
interrupting,  by  a  momentary  sympathy  with 
their  wretchedness,  the  harmonious  psalmody  of 
their  brother  angels  and  men,  eternally  lapped  in 
bliss  unspeakable. 

The  straitest  Protestant,  who  refuses  to  admit 
the  existence  of  any  source  of  Divine  truth, 
except  the  Bible,  will  not  deny  that  every  point 
of  the  pneumatological  theory  here  set  forth  has 
ample  scriptural  warranty.  The  Gospels,  the 
Acts,  the  Epistles,  and  the  Apocalypse  assert  the 
existence  of  the  devil,  of  his  demons  and  of  Hell, 
as  plainly  as  they  do  that  of  God  and  his  angels 
and  Heaven.  It  is  plain  that  the  Messianic  and 
the  Satanic  conceptions  of  the  writers  of  these 
books  are  the  obverse  and  the  reverse  of  the  same 
intellectual  coinage.  If  we  turn  from  Scripture 
to  the  traditions  of  the  Fathers  and  the  confes- 
sions of  the  Churches,  it  will  appear  that,  in  this 
one  particular,  at  any  rate,  time  has  brought 
about  no  important  deviation  from  primitive 
belief.  From  Justin  onwards,  it  may  often  be  a 
fair  question  whether  God,  or  the  devil,  occupies 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  323 

a  larger  share  of  the  attention  of  the  Fathers. 
It  is  the  devil  who  instigates  the  Roman  authori- 
ties to  persecute ;  the  gods  and  goddesses  of 
paganism  are  devils,  and  idolatry  itself  is  an 
invention  of  Satan  ;  if  a  saint  falls  away  from 
grace,  it  is  by  the  seduction  of  the  demon ;  if 
heresy  arises,  the  devil  has  suggested  it ;  and 
some  of  the  Fathers1  go  so  far  as  to  challenge 
the  pagans  to  a  sort  of  exorcising  match,  by  way 
of  testing  the  truth  of  Christianity.  Mediseval 
Christianity  is  at  one  with  patristic,  on  this  head. 
The  masses,  the  clergy,  the  theologians,  and  the 
philosophers  alike,  live  and  move  and  have  their 
being  in  a  world  full  of  demons,  in  which  sorcery 
and  possession  are  everyday  occurrences.  Nor 
did  the  Reformation  make  any  difference.  What- 
ever else  Luther  assailed,  he  left  the  traditional 
demonology  untouched  ;  nor  could  any  one  have 
entertained  a  more  hearty  and  uncompromising 
belief  in  the  devil,  than  he  and,  at  a  later  period, 
the  Calvinistic  fanatics  of  New  England  did. 
Finally,  in  these  last  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  demonological  hypotheses  of  the  first 
century  are,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  held  and 
occasionally  acted  upon  by  the  immense  majority 
of  Christians  of  all  confessions. 

1  Tcrtullian  (Jpolog.  adv.  Gentes,  cap.  xxiii.)  thus  challenges 
the  Roman  authorities  :  let  them  bring  a  possessed  person  into 
the  presence  of  a  Christian  before  their  tribunal ,  and  if  the 
demon  does  not  confess  himself  to  be  such,  on  the  order  of  the 
Christian,  let  the  Christian  be  executed  out  of  hand. 


324  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

Only  here  and  there  has  the  progress  of  scien- 
tific thought,  outside  the  ecclesiastical  world,  so 
far  affected  Christians,  that  they  and  their 
teachers  fight  shy  of  the  demonology  of  their 
creed.  They  are  fain  to  conceal  their  real  dis- 
belief in  one  half  of  Christian  doctrine  by  judi- 
cious silence  about  it ;  or  by  flight  to  those 
refuges  for  the  logically  destitute,  accommodation 
or  allegory.  But  the  faithful  who  fly  to  allegory 
in  order  to  escape  absurdity  resemble  nothing  so 
much  as  the  sheep  in  the  fable  who — to  save  their 
lives — jumped  into  the  pit.  The  allegory  pit  is 
too  commodious,  is  ready  to  swallow  up  so  much 
more  than  one  wants  to  put  into  it.  If  the  story 
of  the  temptation  is  an  allegory;  if  the  early 
recognition  of  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God  by  the 
demons  is  an  allegory  ;  if  the  plain  declaration  of 
the  writer  of  the  first  Epistle  of  John  (iii.  8), 
"  To  this  end  was  the  Son  of  God  manifested, 
that  He  might  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil,"  is 
allegorical,  then  the  Pauline  version  of  the  Fall 
may  be  allegorical,  and  still  more  the  words  of 
consecration  of  the  Eucharist,  or  the  promise  of 
the  second  coming ;  in  fact,  there  is  not  a  dogma 
of  ecclesiastical  Christianity  the  scriptural  basis 
of  which  may  not  be  whittled  away  by  a  similar 
process. 

As  to  accommodation,  let  any  honest  man  who 
can  read  the  New  Testament  ask  himself  whether 
Jesus  and  his  immediate  friends  and  disciples  can 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  325 

be  dishonoured  more  grossly  than  by  the  supposi- 
tion that  they  said  and  did  that  which  is  attri- 
buted to  them ;  while,  in  reality,  they  disbelieved 
in  Satan  and  his  demons,  in  possession  and  in 
exorcism  ? 1 

An  eminent  theologian  has  justly  observed  that 
we  have  no  right  to  look  at  the  propositions  of  the 
Christian  faith  with  one  eye  open  and  the  other 
shut.  (Tract  85,  p.  29.)  It  really  is  not  permis- 
sible to  see,  with  one  eye,  that  Jesus  is  affirmed 
to  declare  the  personality  and  the  Fatherhood  of 
God,  His  loving  providence  and  His  accessibility 
to  prayer;  and  to  shut  the  other  to  the  no  less 
definite  teaching  ascribed  to  Jesus,  in  regard  to 
the  personality  and  the  misanthropy  of  the  devil, 
his  malignant  watchfulness,  and  his  subjection  to 
exorcistic  formulas  and  rites.  Jesus  is  made  to 
say  that  the  devil  "  was  a  murderer  from  the 
beginning  "  (John  viii.  44)  by  the  same  authority 
as  that  upon  which  we  depend  for  his  asserted 
declaration  that  "  God  is  a  spirit "  (John  iv.  24). 

To  those  who  admit  the  authority  of  the  famous 
Vincentian  dictum  that  the  doctrine  which  has 
been  held  "  always,  everywhere,  and  by  all "  is  to 
be  received  as  authoritative,  the  demonology 
must  possess  a  higher  sanction  than  any  other 
Christian  dogma,  except,  perhaps,  those  of  the 
Resurrection  and   of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus ; 

1  See  the  expression  of  orthodox  opinion  upon  the  "accommo- 
dation" subterfuge  already  cited  above,  p.  217. 


326  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

for  it  would  be  difficult  to  name  any  other  points 
of  doctrine  on  which  the  Nazarene  does  not  differ 
from  the  Christian,  and  the  different  historical 
stages  and  contemporary  subdivisions  of  Chris- 
tianity from  one  another.  And,  if  the  demon- 
ology  is  accepted,  there  can  be  no  reason  for 
rejecting  all  those  miracles  in  which  demons  play 
a  part.  The  Gadarene  story  fits  into  the  general 
scheme  of  Christianity ;  and  the  evidence  for 
"  Legion  "  and  their  doings  is  just  as  good  as  any 
other  in  the  New  Testament  for  the  doctrine 
which  the  story  illustrates. 

It  was  with  the  purpose  of  bringing  this  great 
fact  into  prominence  ;  of  getting  people  to  open 
both  their  eyes  when  they  look  at  Ecclesiasticism  ; 
that  I  devoted  so  much  space  to  that  miraculous 
story  which  happens  to  be  one  of  the  best  types 
of  its  class.  And  I  could  not  wish  for  a  better 
justification  of  the  course  I  have  adopted,  than 
the  fact  that  my  heroically  consistent  adversary 
has  declared  his  implicit  belief  in  the  Gadarene 
story  and  (by  necessary  consequence)  in  the 
Christian  demonology  as  a  whole.  It  must  be 
obvious,  by  this  time,  that,  if  the  account  of  the 
spiritual  world  given  in  the  New  Testament,  pro- 
fessedly on  the  authority  of  Jesus,  is  true,  then 
the  demonological  half  of  that  account  must  be 
just  as  true  as  the  other  half.  And,  therefore, 
those  who  question  the  demonology,  or  try  to 
explain  it  away,  deny  the  truth  of   what  Jesus 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  327 

said,  and  are,  in  ecclesiastical  terminology,  "  Infi- 
dels" just  as  much  as  those  who  deny  the 
spirituality  of  God.  This  is  as  plain  as  anything 
can  well  be,  and  the  dilemma  for  my  opponent 
was  either  to  assert  that  the  Gadarene  pig-bedevil- 
ment  actually  occurred,  or  to  write  himself  down 
an  "  Infidel."  As  was  to  be  expected,  he  chose 
the  former  alternative  ;  and  I  may  express  my 
great  satisfaction  at  finding  that  there  is  one  spot 
of  common  ground  on  which  both  he  and  I  stand. 
So  far  as  I  can  judge,  we  are  agreed  to  state  one 
of  the  broad  issues  between  the  consequences  of 
agnostic  principles  (as  I  draw  them),  and  the  con- 
sequences of  ecclesiastical  dogmatism  (as  he  ac- 
cepts it),  as  follows. 

Ecclesiasticism  says :  The  demonology  of  the 
Gospels  is  an  essential  part  of  that  account  of 
that  spiritual  world,  the  truth  of  which  it  de- 
clares to  be  certified  by  Jesus. 

Agnosticism  (inejudice)  says  :  There  is  no  good 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  demoniac  spiritual 
world,  and  much  reason  for  doubting  it. 

Hereupon  the  ecclesiastic  may  observe :  Your 
doubt  means  that  you  disbelieve  Jesus  ;  therefore 
you  are  an  "  Infidel "  instead,  of  an  "  Agnostic." 
To  which  the  agnostic  may  reply  :  No ;  for  two 
reasons  :  first,  because  your  evidence  that  Jesus 
said  what  you  say  he  said  is  worth  very  little ; 
and  secondly,  because  a  man  may  be  an  agnostic, 
in    the    sense  of   admitting  he   has  no    positive 


328  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

knowledge,  and  yet  consider  that  he  has  more  or 
less  probable  ground  for  accepting  any  given 
hypothesis  about  the  spiritual  world.  Just  as  a 
man  may  frankly  declare  that  he  has  no  means  of 
knowing  whether  the  planets  generally  are  in- 
habited or  not,  and  yet  may  think  one  of  the  two 
possible  hypotheses  more  likely  than  the  other,  so 
he  may  admit  that  he  has  no  means  of  knowing 
anything  about  the  spiritual  world,  and  yet  may 
think  one  or  other  of  the  current  views  on  the 
subject,  to  some  extent,  probable. 

The  second  answer  is  so  obviously  valid  that  it 
needs  no  discussion.  I  draw  attention  to  it  simply 
in  justice  to  those  agnostics  who  may  attach 
greater  value  than  I  do  to  any  sort  of  pneumato- 
logical  speculations ;  and  not  because  I  wish  to 
escape  the  responsibility  of  declaring  that,  whether 
Jesus  sanctioned  the  demonological  part  of  Chris- 
tianity or  not,  I  -unhesitatingly  reject  it.  The 
first  answer,  on  the  other  hand,  opens  up  the 
whole  question  of  the  claim  of  the  biblical  and 
other  sources,  from  which  hypotheses  concerning 
the  spiritual  world  are  derived,  to  be  regarded  as 
unimpeachable  historical  evidence  as  to  matters  of 
fact. 

Now,  in  respect  of  the  trustworthiness  of  the 
Gospel  narratives,  I  was  anxious  to  get  rid  of  the 
common  assumption  that  the  determination  of  the 
authorship  and  of  the  dates  of  these  works  is  a 
matter  of  fundamental  importance.    That  assump- 


IX  AGNOSTICISM    AND   CHRISTIANITY  329 

tion  is  based  upon  the  notion  that  what  contem- 
porary witnesses  say  must  be  true,  or,  at  least,  has 
always  a  primdb  facie  daim  to  be  so  regarded;  so 
that  if  the  writers  of  any  of  the  Gospels  were 
contemporaries  of  the  events  (and  still  more  if 
they  were  in  the  position  of  eye-witnesses)  the 
miracles  they  narrate  must  be  historically  true, 
and,  consequently,  the  demonology  which  they 
involve  must  be  accepted.  But  the  story  of  the 
"  Translation  of  the  blessed  martyrs  Marcellinus 
and  Petrus,"  and  the  other  considerations  (to 
which  endless  additions  might  have  been  made 
from  the  Fathers  and  the  mediaeval  writers)  set 
forth  in  a  preceding  essay,  yield,  in  my  judgment, 
satisfactory  proof  that,  where  the  miraculous  is 
concerned,  neither  considerable  intellectual  ability, 
nor  undoubted  honesty,  nor  knowledge  of  the 
world,  nor  proved  faithfulness  as  civil  historians, 
nor  profound  piety,  on  the  part  of  eye-witnesses 
and  contemporaries,  affords  any  guarantee  of  the 
objective  truth  of  their  statements,  when  we  know 
that  a  firm  belief  in  the  miraculous  was  ingTained 
in  their  minds,  and  was  the  pre-supposition  of 
their  observations  and  reasonings. 

Therefore,  although  it  be,  as  I  believe,  demon- 
strable that  we  have  no  real  knowledge  of  the 
authorship,  or  of  the  date  of  composition  of  the 
Gospels,  as  they  have  come  down  to  us,  and 
that  nothing  better  than  more  or  less  probable 
guesses  can  be  arrived  at  on  that  subject,  I  have 


330  AGNOSTICISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY  ix 

not  cared  to  expend  any  space  on  the  question. 
It  will  be  admitted,  I  suppose,  that  the  authors  of 
the  works  attributed  to  Matthew.  Mark,  Luke,  and 
John,  whoever  they  may  be,  are  personages  whose 
capacity  and  judgment  in  the  narration  of  ordin- 
ary events  are  not  quite  so  well  certified  as  those 
of  Eginhard  ;  and  we  have  seen  what  the  value  of 
Eginhard's  evidence  is  when  the  miraculous  is  in 
question. 

I  have  been  careful  to  explain  that  the  argu- 
ments which  I  have  used  in  the  course  of  this 
discussion  are  not  new ;  that  they  are  historical 
and  have  nothing  to  do  with  what  is  commonly 
called  science ;  and  that  they  are  all,  to  the  best 
of  my  belief,  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  theologi- 
ans of  repute. 

The  position  which  I  have  taken  up,  that  the 
evidence  in  favour  of  such  miracles  as  those 
recorded  by  Eginhard,  and  consequently  of 
mediaeval  demonology,  is  quite  as  good  as  that  in 
favour  of  such  miracles  as  the  Gadarene,  and  con- 
sequently of  Nazarene  demonology,  is  none  of  my 
discovery.  Its  strength  was,  wittingly  or  un- 
wittingly, suggested,  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  by 
a  theological  scholar  of  eminence  ;  and  it  has  been, 
if  not  exactly  occupied,  yet  so  fortified  with  bas- 
tions and  redoubts  by  a  living  ecclesiastical 
Vauban,  that,  in  my  judgment,  it  has  been  ren- 
dered impregnable.     In  the  early  part  of  the  last 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  331 

century,  the  ecclesiastical  mind  in  this  country- 
was  much  exercised  by  the  question,  not  exactly 
of  miracles,  the  occurrence  of  which  in  biblical 
times  was  axiomatic,  but  by  the  problem :  When 
did  miracles  cease  ?  Anglican  divines  were  quite 
sure  that  no  miracles  had  happened  in  their  day, 
nor  for  some  time  past ;  they  were  equally  sure 
that  they  happened  sixteen  or  seventeen  centuries 
earlier.  And  it  was  a  vital  question  for  them  to 
determine  at  what  point  of  time,  between  this 
terminus  a  quo  and  that  terminus  ad  quern, 
miracles  came  to  an  end. 

The  Anglicans  and  the  Romanists  agreed  in 
the  assumption  that  the  possession  of  the  gift  of 
miracle-working  was  'prima  facie  evidence  of  the 
soundness  of  the  faith  of  the  miracle-workers. 
The  supposition  that  miraculous  powers  might  be 
wielded  by  heretics  (though  it  might  be  supported 
by  high  authority)  led  to  consequences  too  fright- 
ful to  be  entertained  by  people  who  were  busied 
in  building  their  dogmatic  house  on  the  sands  of 
early  Church  history.  If,  as  the  Romanists  main- 
tained, an  unbroken  series  of  geuuine  miracles 
adorned  the  records  of  their  Church,  throughout 
the  whole  of  its  existence,  no  Anglican  could 
lightly  venture  to  accuse  them  of  doctrinal  cor- 
ruption. Hence,  the  Anglicans,  who  indulged  in 
such  accusations,  were  bound  to  prove  the  modern, 
the  mediaeval  Roman,  and  the  later  Patristic, 
miracles  false ;  and  to  shut  off  the  wonder-working 


332  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY 


IX 


power  from  the  Church  at  the  exact  point  of 
time  when  Anglican  doctrine  ceased  and  Roman 
doctrine  began.  With  a  little  adjustment — a 
squeeze  here  and  a  pull  there — the  Christianity 
of  the  first  three  or  four  centuries  might  be  made 
to  fit,  or  seem  to  fit,  pretty  well  into  the  Anglican 
scheme.  So  the  miracles,  from  Justin  say  to 
Jerome,  might  be  recognised;  while,  in  later 
times,  the  Church  having  become  "  corrupt " — 
that  is  to  say,  having  pursued  one  and  the  same 
line  of  development  further  than  was  pleasing  to 
Anglicans — its  alleged  miracles  must  needs  be 
shams  and  impostures. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  may  be  imagined 
that  the  establishment  of  a  scientific  frontier 
between  the  earlier  realm  of  supposed  fact  and 
the  later  of  asserted  delusion,  had  its  difficulties  ; 
and  torrents  of  theological  special  pleading  about 
the  subject  flowed  from  clerical  pens  ;  until  that 
learned  and  acute  Anglican  divine,  Conyers 
Middleton,-  in  his  "  Free  Inquiry,"  tore  the  sophis- 
tical web  they  had  laboriously  woven  to  pieces,  and 
demonstrated  that  the  miracles  of  the  patristic 
age,  early  and  late,  must  stand  or  fall  together, 
inasmuch  as  the  evidence  for  the  later  is  just  as 
good  as  the  evidence  for  the  earlier  wonders.  If 
the  one  set  are  certified  by  contemporaneous 
witnesses  of  high  repute,  so  are  the  other;  and, 
in  point  of  probability,  there  is  not  a  pin  to  choose 
between  the  two.     That  is  the  solid  and  irrefrag- 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  333 

able  result  of  Middleton's  contribution  to  the 
subject.  But  the  Free  Inquirer's  freedom  had  its 
limits  ;  and  he  draws  a  sharp  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  patristic  and  the  New  Testament 
miracles — on  the  professed  ground  that  the 
accounts  of  the  latter,  being  inspired,  are  out  of 
the  reach  of  criticism. 

A  century  later,  the  question  was  taken  up  by 
another  divine,  Middleton's  equal  in  learning  and 
acuteness,  and  far  his  superior  in  subtlety  and 
dialetic  skill ;  who, though  an  Anglican,  scorned  the 
name  of  Protestant ;  and,  while  yet  a  Churchman, 
made  it  his  business,  to  parade,  with  infinite  skill,  the 
utter  hollowness  of  the  arguments  of  those  of  his 
brother  Churchmen  who  dreamed  that  they  could 
be  both  Anglicans  and  Protestants.  The  argument 
of  the  "  Essay  on  the  Miracles  recorded  in  the  Eccle- 
siastical History  of  the  Early  Ages" 1  by  the  present 
[1889]  Roman  Cardinal,  but  then  Anglican  Doctor, 
John  Henry  Newman,  is  compendiously  stated  by 
himself  in  the  following  passage  : — • 

If  the  miracles  of  Church  history  cannot  be  defended  by  the 
arguments  of  Leslie,  Lyttleton,  Paley,  or  Douglas,  how  many  of 
the  Scripture  miracles  satisfy  their  conditions  ?  (p.  cvii). 

And,  although  the  answer  is  not  given  in  so  many 
words,  little   doubt    is  left  on  the  mind   of  the. 

1  I  quote  the  first  edition  (1843).  A  second  edition  appeared 
in  1870.  Tract  85  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  should  be  read 
with  this  Essay.  If  I  were  called  upon  to  compile  a  Primer  of 
"Infidelity,"  I  think  I  should  save  myself  trouble  by  making  a 
selection  from  these  works,  and  from  the  Essay  on  Development 
by  the  same  author. 


334  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHKISTIANITY  ix 

reader,  that,  in  the  mind  of  the  writer,  it  is :  None. 
In  fact,  this  conclusion  is  one  which  cannot  be 
resisted,  if  the  argument  in  favour  of  the  Scripture 
miracles  is  based  upon  that  which  laymen, 
whether  lawyers,  or  men  of  science,  or  historians, 
or  ordinary  men  of  affairs,  call  evidence.  But 
there  is  something  really  impressive  in  the 
magnificent  contempt  with  which,  at  times,  Dr. 
Newman  sweeps  aside  alike  those  who  offer  and 
those  who  demand  such  evidence. 

Some  infidel  authors  advise  us  to  accept  no  miracles  winch 
would  not  have  a  verdict  in  their  favour  in  a  court  of  justice  ; 
that  is,  they  employ  against  Scripture  a  weapon  which  Pro- 
testants would  confine  to  attacks  upon  the  Church  ;  as  if  moral 
and  religious  questions  required  legal  proof,  and  evidence  were 
the  test  of  truth x  (p.  cvii). 

"  As  if  evidence  were  the  test  of  truth  "  ! — although 
the  truth  in  question  is  the  occurrence,  or  the 
non-occurrence,  of  certain  phenomena  at  a  certain 
time  and  in  a  certain  place.  This  sudden  revelation 
of  the  great  gulf  fixed  between  the  ecclesiastical 
and  the  scientific  mind  is  enough  to  take  away 
the  breath  of  any  one  unfamiliar  with  the  clerical 
organon.  As  if,  one  may  retort,  the  assumption 
that  miracles  may,  or  have,  served  a  moral  or  a 
religious  end,  in  any  way  alters  the  fact  that  they 
profess  to  be  historical  events,  things  that  actually 

1  Yet,  when  it  suits  his  purpose,  as  in  the  Introduction  to  the 
Essay  on  Development,  Dr.  Newman  can  demand  strict  evidence 
in  religious  questions  as  sharply  as  any  "infidel  author"  ;  and 
he  can  even  profess  to  yield  to  its  force  {Essay  on  Miracles,  1870  ; 
note,  p.  391). 


IX  AGNOSTICISM    AND    CHRISTIANITY  335 

happened;  and,  as  such,  must  needs  be  exactly 
those  subjects  about  which  evidence  is  appropriate 
and  legal  proofs  (which  are  such  merely  because 
they  afford  adequate  evidence)  may  be  justly 
demanded.  The  Gadarene  miracle  either  hap- 
pened, or  it  did  not.  Whether  the  Gadarene 
"  question "  is  moral  or  religious,  or  not,  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  fact  that  it  is  a  purely 
historical  question  whether  the  demons  said  what 
they  are  declared  to  have  said,  and  the  devil- 
possessed  pigs  did,  or  did  not,  rush  over  the  heights 
bounding  the  Lake  of  Gennesaret  on  a  certain  day 
of  a  certain  year,  after  A.D.  26  and  before  A.D.  36  : 
for  vague  and  uncertain  as  New  Testament 
chronology  is,  I  suppose  it  may  be  assumed  that 
the  event  in  question,  if  it  happened  at  all,  took 
place  during  the  procuratorship  of  Pilate.  If  that 
is  not  a  matter  about  which  evidence  ought  to  be 
required,  and  not  only  legal,  but  strict  scientific 
proof  demanded  by  sane  men  who  are  asked  to 
believe  the  story — what  is  ?  Is  a  reasonable 
being  to  be  seriously  asked  to  credit  statements, 
which,  to  put  the  case  gently,  are  not  exactly 
probable,  and  on  the  acceptance  or  rejection  of 
which  his  whole  view  of  life  may  depend,  without 
asking  for  as  much  "  legal "  proof  as  would  send 
an  alleged  pickpocket  to  gaol,  or  as  would  suffice 
to  prove  the  validity  of  a  disputed  will  ? 

"  Infidel  authors  "  (if,  as  I  am  assured,  I  may 
answer  for  them)  will  decline  to   waste  time  on 
137 


336  AGNOSTICISM   AND  CHRISTIANITY  ix 

mere  darkenings  of  counsel  of  this  sort ;  but  to 
those  Anglicans  who  accept  his  premises,  Dr. 
Newman  is  a  truly  formidable  antagonist.  What, 
indeed,  are  they  to  reply  when  he  puts  the  very 
pertinent  question : — 

whether  persons  who  not  merely  question,  but  prejudge  the 
Ecclesiastical  miracles  on  the  ground  of  their  want  of  resem- 
blance, whatever  that  be,  to  those  contained  in  Scripture — as 
if  the  Almighty  could  not  do  in  the  Christian  Church  what  He 
had  not  already  done  at  the  time  of  its  foundation,  or  under  the 
Mosaic  Covenant — whether  such  reasoners  are  not  siding  with 
the  sceptic, 

and 

whether  it  is  not  a  happy  inconsistency  by  which  they  con- 
tinue to  believe  the  Scriptures  while  they  reject  the  Church1 
(p.  liii). 

Again,  I  invite  Anglican  orthodoxy  to  consider  this 
passage  : — 

the  narrative  of  the  combats  of  St.  Antony  with  evil  spirits,  is  a 
development  rather  than  a  contradiction  of  revelation,  viz.  of 
such  texts  as  speak  of  Satan  being  cast  out  by  prayer  and 
fasting.  To  be  shocked,  then,  at  the  miracles  of  Ecclesiastical 
history,  or  to  ridicule  them  for  their  strangeness,  is  no  part  of  a 
scriptural  philosophy  (pp.  liii-liv). 

Further  on,  Dr.  Newman  declares  that  it  has 
been  admitted 

that  a  distinct  line  cm  be  drawn  in  point  of  character  and  cir- 
cumstance between  the  miracles  of   Scripture  and  of  Church 

1  Compare  Tract  85,  p.  110  ;  "I  am  persuaded  that  were  men 
but  consistent  who  oppose  the  Church  doctrines  as  being 
unscriptural,  they  would  vindicate  the  Jews  for  rejecting  the 
Gospel. " 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  337 

history  ;  but  this  is  by  no  means  the  case  (p,  lv).  .  .  .  speci- 
mens are  not  wanting  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  of  miracles 
as  awful  in  their  character  and  as  momentous  in  their  effects  as 
those  which  are  recorded  in  Scripture.  The  fire  interrupting 
the  rebuilding  of  the  Jewish  temple,  and  the  death  of  Arras,  are 
instances,  in  Ecclesiastical  history,  of  such  solemn  events.  On 
the  other  hand,  difficult  instances  in  the  Scripture  history  are 
such  as  these  :  the  serpent  in  Eden,  the  Ark,  Jacob's  vision  for 
the  multiplication  of  his  cattle,  the  speaking  of  Balaam's  ass, 
the  axe  swimming  at  Elisha's  word,  the  miracle  on  the  swine, 
and  various  instances  of  prayers  or  prophecies,  in  which,  as  in 
that  of  Noah's  blessing  and  curse,  words  which  seem  the  result 
of  private  feeling  are  expressly  or  virtually  ascribed  to  a  Divine 
suggestion  (p.  lvi). 

Who  is  to  gainsay  our  ecclesiastical  authority 
here  ?  "  Infidel  authors  "  might  be  accused  of  a 
wish  to  ridicule  the  Scripture  miracles  by  putting 
them  on  a  level  with  the  remarkable  story  about 
the  fire  which  stopped  the  rebuilding  of  the 
Temple,  or  that  about  the  death  of  Arius — but 
Dr.  Newman  is  above  suspicion.  The  pity  is  that 
his  list  of  what  he  delicately  terms  "  difficult " 
instances  is  so  short,  Why  omit  the  manufacture 
of  Eve  out  of  Adam's  rib,  on  the  strict  historical 
accuracy  of  which  the  chief  argument  of  the 
defenders  of  an  iniquitous  portion  of  our  present 
marriage  law  depends  ?  Why  leave  out  the 
account  of  the  "  Bene  Elohim  "  and  their  gallan- 
tries, on  which  a  large  part  of  the  worst  practices 
of  the  mediaeval  inquisitors  into  witchcraft  was 
based  ?  Why  forget  the  angel  who  wrestled  with 
Jacob,   and,  as  the   account    suggests,  somewhat 


338  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

over-stepped  the  bounds  of  fair  play,  at  the  end  of 
the  struggle  ?  Surely,  we  must  agree  with  Dr. 
Newman  that,  if  all  these  camels  have  gone  down, 
it  savours  of  affectation  to  strain  at  such  gnats  as 
the  sudden  ailment  of  Arius  in  the  midst  of  his 
deadly,  if  prayerful,1  enemies  ;  and  the  fiery  explo- 
sion which  stopped  the  Julian  building  operations. 
Though  the  words  of  the  "  Conclusion "  of  the 
"  Essay  on  Miracles "  may,  perhaps,  be  quoted 
against  me,  I  may  express  my  satisfaction  at  finding 
myself  in  substantial  accordance  with  a  theologian 
above  all  suspicion  of  heterodoxy.  With  all  my 
heart,  I  can  declare  my  belief  that  there  is  just  as 
good  reason  for  believing  in  the  miraculous  slay- 
ing of  the  man  who  fell  short  of  the  Athanasian 
power  of  affirming  contradictories,  with  respect  to 
the  nature  of  the  Godhead,  as  there  is  for  believing 
in  the  stories  of  the  serpent  and  the  ark  told  in 
Genesis,  the  speaking  of  Balaam's  ass  in  Numbers, 
or  the  floating  of  the  axe,  at  Elisha's  order,  in  the 
second  book  of  Kings. 

It  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  a  really  sound 

1  According  to  Dr.  Newman,  ' '  This  prayer  [that  of  Bishop 
Alexander,  who  begged  God  to  '  take  Arius  away  ']  is  said  to 
have  been  offered  about  3  p.m.  on  the  Saturday;  that  same 
evening  Arius  was  in  the  great  square  of  Constantine,  when  he 
was  suddenly  seized  with  indisposition"  (p.  clxx).  The 
"infidel"  Gibbon  seems  to  have  dared  to  suggest  that  "an 
option  between  poison  and  miracle"  is  presented  by  this 
case  ;  and,  it  must  be  admitted,  that,  if  the  Bishop  had  been 
within  the  reach  of  a  modern  police  magistrate,  things  might 
have  gone  hardly  with  him.     Modern  "  Infidels,"  possessed  of  a 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND    CHRISTIANITY  339 

argument  that  it  is  susceptible  of  the  fullest 
development ;  and  that  it  sometimes  leads  to  con- 
clusions unexpected  by  those  who  employ  it.  To 
my  mind,  it  is  impossible  to  refuse  to  follow  Dr. 
Newman  when  he  extends  his  reasoning,  from  the 
miracles  of  the  patristic  and  mediaeval  ages  back- 
ward in  time,  as  far  as  miracles  are  recorded. 
But,  if  the  rules  of  logic  are  valid,  I  feel  com- 
pelled to  extend  the  argument  forwards  to  the 
alleged  Roman  miracles  of  the  present  day,  which 
Dr.  Newman  might  not  have  admitted,  but  which 
Cardinal  Newman  may  hardly  reject.  Beyond 
question,  there  is  as  good,  or  perhaps  better, 
evidence  for  the  miracles  worked  by  our  Lady  of 
Lourdes,  as  there  is  for  the  floating  of  Elisha's  axe, 
or  the  speaking  of  Balaam's  ass.  But  we  must  go 
still  further  ;  there  is  a  modern  system  of  thauma- 
turgy  and  demonology  which  is  just  as  well 
certified    as   the   ancient.1     Veracious,   excellent, 

slight  knowledge  of  chemistry,  are  not  unlikely,  with  no  less 
audacity,  to  suggest  an  "option  between  fire-damp  and  miracle  " 
in  seeking  for  the  cause  of  the  fiery  outburst  at  Jerusalem. 

1  A  writer  in  a  spiritualist  journal  takes  me  roundly  to  task 
for  venturing  to  doubt  the  historical  and  literal  truth  of  the 
Gadarene  story.  The  following  passage  in  his  letter  is  worth 
quotation  :  "  Now  to  the  materialistic  and  scientific  mind,  to  the 
uninitiated  in  spiritual  verities,  certainly  this  story  of  the 
Gadarene  or  Gergesene  swine  presents  insurmountable  difficulties  ; 
it  seems  grotesque  and  nonsensical.  To  the  experienced,  trained, 
and  cultivated  Spiritualist  this  miracle  is,  as  I  am  prepared  to 
show,  one  of  the  most  instinctive,  the  most  profoundly  useful, 
and  the  most  beneficent  which  Jesus  ever  wrought  in 
the  whole  course  of  His  pilgrimage  of  redemption  on  earth." 
Just  so.  And  the  first  page  of  this  same  journal  presents  the 
following  advertisement,  among  others  of  the  same  kidney  : — 

"To  Wealthy  Spieitualists. — A  Lady  Medium  of  tried 


340  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

sometimes  learned  and  acute  persons,  even  philo- 
sophers of  no  mean  pretensions,  testify  to  the 
"  levitation  "  of  bodies  much  heavier  than  Elisha's 
axe ;  to  the  existence  of  "  spirits "  who,  to  the 
mere  tactile  sense,  have  been  indistinguishable 
from  flesh  and  blood ;  and,  occasionally,  have 
wrestled  with  all  the  vigour  of  Jacob's  opponent ; 
yet,  further,  to  the  speech,  in  the  language  of  raps, 
of  spiritual  beings,  whose  discourses,  in  point  of 
coherence  and  value,  are  far  inferior  to  that  of 
Balaam's  humble  but  sagacious  steed.  I  have  not 
the  smallest  doubt  that,  if  these  were  persecuting 
times,  there  is  many  a  worthy  "  spiritualist  "  who 
would  cheerfully  go  to  the  stake  in  support  of  his 
pneumatological  faith ;  and  furnish  evidence,  after 
Paley's  own  heart,  in  proof  of  the  truth  of  his 
doctrines.  Not  a  few  modern  divines,  doubtless 
struck  by  the  impossibility  of  refusing  the  spirit- 
ualist evidence,  if  the  ecclesiastical  evidence  is 
accepted,  and  deprived  of  any  a  priori  objection 
by  their  implicit  belief  in  Christian  Demonology, 
show  themselves  ready  to  take  poor  Sludge 
seriously,  and  to  believe  that  he  is  possessed  by 
other  devils  than  those  of  need,  greed,  and  vain- 
glory. 

Under    these    circumstances,     it    was    to    be 

power  wishes  to  meet  with  an  elderly  gentleman  who  would  he 
willing  to  give  her  a  comfortable  home  and  maintenance  in 
Exchange  for  her  Spiritualistic  services,  as  her  guides  consider 
her  health  is  too  delicate  for  public  sittings  :  London  preferred. — 
Address  '  Mary,'  Office  of  Light." 

Are  we  going  back  to  the  days  of  the  Judges,  when  wealthy 
Micah  set  up  his  private  ephod,  teraphim,  and  Levite  ? 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  341 

expected,  though  it  is  none  the  less  interesting  to 
note  the  fact,  that  the  arguments  of  the  latest 
school  of  "  spiritualists "  present  a  wonderful 
family  likeness  to  those  which  adorn  the  subtle 
disquisitions  of  the  advocate  of  ecclesiastical 
miracles  of  forty  years  ago.  It  is  unfortunate  for 
the  "  spiritualists  "  that,  over  and  over  again,  cele- 
brated and  trusted  media,  who  really,  in  some 
respects,  call  to  mind  the  Montanist 2  and  gnostic 
seers  of  the  second  century,  are  either  proved  in 
courts  of  law  to  be  fraudulent  impostors;  or,  in 
sheer  weariness,  as  it  would  seem,  of  the  honest 
dupes  who  swear  by  them,  spontaneously  confess 
their  long-continued  iniquities,  as  the  Fox  women 
did  the  other  day  in  New  York.2  But,  whenever 
a  catastrophe  of  this  kind  takes  place,  the  believers 
are  no  wise  dismayed  by  it.  They  freely  admit 
that  not  only  the  media,  but  the  spirits  whom  they 
summon,  are  sadly  apt  to  lose  sight  of  the  elemen- 
tary principles  of  right  and  wrong ;  and  they 
triumphantly  ask  :   How  does  the   occurrence  of 

1  Consider  Tertullian's  "sister"  ("hodie  apnd  nos"),  who 
conversed  with  angels,  saw  and  heard  mysteries,  knew  men's 
thoughts,  and  prescribed  medicine  for  their  bodies  (Be  Anima, 
cap.  9).  Tertnllian  tells  us  that  this  woman  saw  the  soul  as 
corporeal,  and  described  its  colour  and  shape.  The  ' '  infidel  " 
will  probably  be  unable  to  refrain  from  insulting  the  memory 
of  the  ecstatic  saint  by  the  remark,  that  Tertullian's  known 
views  about  the  corporeality  of  the  soul  may  have  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  remarkable  perceptive  powers  of  the 
Montanist  medium,  in  whose  revelations  of  the  spiritual  world  he 
took  such  profound  interest. 

2  See  the  New  York  World  for  Sunday,  21st  October,  1888  ; 
and  the  Report  of  the  Seybert  Commission,  Philadelphia,  1887. 


342  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

occasional  impostures  disprove  the  genuine  mani- 
festations (that  is  to  say,  all  those  which  have  not 
yet  been  proved  to  be  impostures  or  delusions)  ? 
And,  in  this,  they  unconsciously  plagiarise  from  the 
churchman,  who  just  as  freely  admits  that  many 
ecclesiastical  miracles  may  have  been  forged  ;  and 
asks,  with  calm  contempt,  not  only  of  legal  proofs, 
but  of  common- sense  probability,  Why  does  it 
follow  that  none  are  to  be  supposed  genuine  ? 
I  must  say,  however,  that  the  spiritualists,  so  far 
as  I  know,  do  not  venture  to  outrage  right  reason 
so  boldly  as  the  ecclesiastics.  They  do  not  sneer 
at  "  evidence  "  ;  nor  repudiate  the  requirement  of 
legal  proofs.  In  fact,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  spiritualists  produce  better  evidence  for  their 
manifestations  than  can  be  shown  either  for  the 
miraculous  death  of  Arius,  or  for  the  Invention  of 
the  Cross.1 

From  the  "  levitation  "  of  the  axe  at  one  end 
of  a  period  of  near  three  thousand  years  to  the 
"  levitation  "  of  Sludge  &  Co.  at  the  other  end, 
there  is  a  complete  continuity  of  the  miraculous, 
with  every  gradation,  from  the  childish  to  the 
stupendous,  from  the  gratification  of  a  caprice  to 
the  illustration  of   sublime  truth.     There   is  no 

1  Dr.  Newman's  observation  that  the  miraculous  multipli- 
cation of  the  pieces  of  the  true  cross  (with  which  "the  whole 
world  is  filled,"  according  to  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  ;  and  of  which 
some  say  there  are  enough  extant  to  build  a  man-of-war)  is  no 
more  wonderful  than  that  of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  is  one  that  I  do 
not  see  my  way  to  contradict.  See  Essay  on  Miracles,  2d  ed. 
p.  163. 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  343 

drawing  a  line  in  the  series  that  might  be  set  out 
of  plausibly  attested  cases  of  spiritual  interven- 
tion. If  one  is  true,  all  may  be  true ;  if  one  is 
false,  all  may  be  false. 

This  is,  to  my  mind,  the  inevitable  result  of 
that  method  of  reasoning  which  is  applied  to  the 
confutation  of  Protestantism,  with  so  much  suc- 
cess, by  one  of  the  acutest  and  subtlest  disput- 
ants who  have  ever  championed  Ecclesiasticism 
— and  one  cannot  put  his  claims  to  acuteness 
and  subtlety  higher. 

...  the  Christianity  of  history  is  not  Protestantism.  If  ever 
there  were  a  safe  truth  it  is  this.  .  .  .  "To  be  deep  in  history 
is  to  cease  to  be  a  Protestant."  l 

I  have  not  a  shadow  of  doubt  that  these  anti- 
Protestant  epigrams  are  profoundly  true.  But  I 
have  as  little  that,  in  the  same  sense,  the  "  Chris- 
tianity of  history  is  not "  Romanism ;  and  that 
to  be  deeper  in  history  is  to  cease  to  be  a 
Romanist.  The  reasons  which  compel  my  doubts 
about  the  compatibility  of  the  Roman  doctrine, 
or  any  other  form  of  Catholicism,  with  history, 
arise  out  of  exactly  the  same  line  of  argument  as 
that  adopted  by  Dr.  Newman  in  the  famous 
essay  which  I  have  just  cited.  If,  with  one  hand, 
Dr.  Newman  has  destroyed  Protestantism,  he  has 

1  An  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  by  J.  H. 
Newman,  D.D.,  pp.  7  and  8.     (1878.) 


344  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

annihilated  Romanism  with  the  other ;  and  the 
total  result  of  his  ambidextral  efforts  is  to  shake 
Christianity  to  its  foundations.  Nor  was  any  one 
better  aware  that  this  must  be  the  inevitable 
result  of  his  arguments — if  the  world  should 
refuse  to  accept  Roman  doctrines  and  Roman 
miracles — than  the  writer  of  Tract  85. 

Dr.  Newman  made  his  choice  and  passed  over 
to  the  Roman  Church  half  a  century  ago.     Some 
of  those   who  were  essentially  in  harmony  with 
his  views  preceded,  and  many  followed  him.     But 
many  remained ;   and,  as  the  quondam  Puseyite 
and  present  Ritualistic  party,  they  are  continuing 
that  work  of   sapping  and  mining  the  Protest- 
antism of  the  Anglican  Church  which  he  and  his 
friends  so  ably  commenced.     At  the  present  time, 
they    have    no    little    claim     to    be    considered 
victorious  all  along  the  line.     I  am  old  enough  to 
recollect  the  small  beginnings  of  the  Tractarian 
party ;    and  I  am  amazed  when  I  consider  the 
present  position  of  their  heirs.     Their  little  leaven 
has  leavened,  if  not  the  whole,  yet  a  very  large 
lump  of   the  Anglican   Church ;    which  is    now 
pretty  much  of  a  preparatory  school  for  Papistry. 
So  that  it  really  behoves  Englishmen  (who,  as  I 
have    been  informed  by  high   authority,  are  all 
legally,  members  of   the   State  Church,  if  they 
profess  to  belong  to  no  other  sect)  to  wake  up  to 
what    that   powerful    organisation   is   about,  and 
whither  it  is  tending.     On  this  point,  the  writings 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  345 

of  Dr.  Newman,  while  he  still  remained  within 
the  Anglican  fold,  are  a  vast  store  of  the  best 
and  the  most  authoritative  information.  His 
doctrines  on  Ecclesiastical  miracles  and  on 
Development  are  the  corner-stones  of  the  Tract- 
arian  fabric.  He  believed  that  his  arguments  led 
either  Homeward,  or  to  what  ecclesiastics  call 
"  Infidelity,"  and  I  call  Agnosticism.  I  believe 
that  he  was  quite  right  in  this  conviction  ;  but 
while  he  chooses  the  one  alternative,  I  choose  the 
other ;  as  he  rejects  Protestantism  on  the  ground 
of  its  incompatibility  with  history,  so,  d  fortiori, 
I  conceive  that  Romanism  ought  to  be  rejected  ; 
and  that  an  impartial  consideration  of  the  evi- 
dence must  refuse  the  authority  of  Jesus  to 
anything  more  than  the  Nazarenism  of  James 
and  Peter  and  John.  And  let  it  not  be  supposed 
that  this  is  a  mere  "infidel"  perversion  of  the  facts. 
No  one  has  more  openly  and  clearly  admitted  the 
possibility  that  they  may  be  fairly  interpreted  in 
this  way  than  Dr.  Newman.  If,  he  says,  there 
are  texts  which  seem  to  show  that  Jesus  contem- 
plated the  evangelisation  of  the  heathen : 

.  .  .  Did  not  the  Apostles  hear  our  Lord  ?  and  what  was  their 
impression  from  what  they  heard  ?  Is  it  not  certain  that  the 
Apostles  did  not  gather  this  truth  from  His  teaching  ?  (Tract 
85,  p.  63). 

He  said,  ' '  Preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature. "  These  words 
need  hare  only  meant  "Bring  all  men  to  Christianity  through 
Judaism."  Make  them  Jews,  that  they  may  enjoy  Christ's 
privileges,    which  are  lodged  in  Judaism ;  teach  them  those 


346  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

rites  and  ceremonies,  circumcision  and  the  like,  which  hitherto 
have  been  dead  ordinances,  and  now  are  living :  and  so  the 
Apostles  seem  to  have  understood  them  {ibid.  p.  65). 

So  far  as  Nazarenism  differentiated  itself  from 
contemporary  orthodox  Judaism,  it  seems  to  have 
tended  towards  a  revival  of  the  ethical  and 
religious  spirit  of  the  prophetic  age,  accompanied 
by  the  belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  and  by 
various  accretions  which  had  grown  round  Judaism 
subsequently  to  the  exile.  To  these  belong  the 
doctrines  of  the  Resurrection,  of  the  Last  Judg- 
ment, of  Heaven  and  Hell ;  of  the  hierarchy  of 
good  angels ;  of  Satan  and  the  hierarchy  of  evil 
spirits.  And  there  is  very  strong  ground  for 
believing  that  all  these  doctrines,  at  least  in  the 
shapes  in  which  they  were  held  by  the  post-exilic 
Jews;  were  derived  from  Persian  and  Babylonian  1 
sources,  and  are  essentially  of  heathen  origin. 

How  far  Jesus  positively  sanctioned  all  these 
indrainings  of  circumjacent  Paganism  into  Juda- 
ism ;  how  far  any  one  has  a  right  to  declare,  that 
the  refusal  to  accept  one  or  other  of  these 
doctrines,  as  ascertained  verities,  comes  to  the 
same  thing  as  contradicting  Jesus,  it  appears  to 

1  Dr.  Newman  faces  this  question  with  his  customary  ability. 
"Now,  I  own,  I  am  not  at  all  solicitous  to  deny  that  this 
doctrine  of  an  apostate  Angel  and  his  hosts  was  gained 
from  Babylon  :  it  might  still  be  Divine  nevertheless.  God  who 
made  the  prophet's  ass  speak,  and  thereby  instructed  the 
prophet,  might  instruct  His  Church  by  means  of  heathen 
Babylon  "  (Tract  85,  p.  83).  There  seems  to  be  no  end  to  the 
apologetic  burden  that  Balaam's  ass  can  carry. 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  347 

me  not  easy  to  say.  But  it  is  hardly  less  difficult 
to  conceive  that  he  could  have  distinctly  nega- 
tived any  of  them  ;  and,  more  especially,  that 
demonology  which  has  been  accepted  by  the 
Christian  Churches,  in  every  age  and  under  all 
their  mutual  antagonisms.  But,  I  repeat  my 
conviction  that,  whether  Jesus  sanctioned  the 
demonology  of  his  time  and  nation  or  not,  it  is 
doomed.  The  future  of  Christianity,  as  a  dog- 
matic system  and  apart  from  the  old  Israelitish 
ethics  which  it  has  appropriated  and  developed, 
lies  in  the  answer  which  mankind  will  eventually 
give  to  the  question,  whether  they  are  prepared  to 
believe  such  stories  as  the  Gadarene  and  the 
pneumatological  hypotheses  which  go  with  it,  or 
not.  My  belief  is  they  will  decline  to  do  any- 
thing of  the  sort,  whenever  and  wherever  their 
minds  have  been  disciplined  by  science.  And 
that  discipline  must,  and  will,  at  once  follow  and 
lead  the  footsteps  of  advancing  civilisation. 

The  preceding  pages  were  written  before  I 
became  acquainted  with  the  contents  of  the  May 
number  of  the  "  Nineteenth  Century/'  wherein  I 
discover  many  things  which  are  decidedly  not  to 
my  advantage.  It  would  appear  that  "  evasion  " 
is  my  chief  resource,  "  incapacity  for  strict  argu- 
ment ':  and  '*  rottenness  of  ratiocination"  my  main 
mental  characteristics,  and  that  it  is  "barely 
credible"  that   a  statement  which   I  profess    to 


348  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

make  of  my  own  knowledge  is  true.  All  which 
things  I  notice,  merely  to  illustrate  the  great 
truth,  forced  on  me  by  long  experience,  that  it  is 
only  from  those  who  enjoy  the  blessing  of  a  firm 
hold  of  the  Christian  faith  that  such  manifesta- 
tions of  meekness,  patience,  and  charity  are  to  be 
expected. 

I  had  imagined  that  no  one  who  had  read 
my  preceding  papers,  could  entertain  a  doubt  as 
to  my  position  m  respect  of  the  main  issue,  as 
it  has  been  stated  and  restated  by  my  opponent : 

an  Agnosticism  which  knows  nothing  of  the  relation  of  man  to 
God  must  not  only  refuse  belief  to  our  Lord's  most  undoubted 
teachingj  but  must  deny  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  convictions 
in  which  He  lived.1 

That  is  said  to  be  "  the  simple  question  which  is 
at  issue  between  us,"  and  the  three  testimonies  to 
that  teaching  and  those  convictions  selected  are 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and 
the  Story  of  the  Passion. 

My  answer,  reduced  to  its  briefest  form,  has 
been :  In  the  first  place,  the  evidence  is  such  that 
the  exact  nature  of  the  teachings  and  the  convic- 
tions of  Jesus  is  extremely  uncertain ;  so  that 
what  ecclesiastics  are  pleased  to  call  a  denial  of 
them  may  be  nothing  of  the  kind.  And,  in  the 
second  place,  if  Jesus  taught  the  demonological 
system  involved  in  the  Gadarene  story — if  a  belief 

x  Nineteenth  Centicry,  May  1889  (p.  701). 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  349 

in  that  system  formed  a  part  of  the  spiritual  con- 
victions in  which  he  lived  and  died — then  I,  for 
my  part,  unhesitatingly  refuse  belief  in  that 
teaching,  and  deny  the  reality  of  those  spiritual 
convictions.  And  I  go  further  and  add,  that, 
exactly  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  proved  that  Jesus 
sanctioned  the  essentially  pagan  demon ological 
theories  current  among  the  Jews  of  his  age, 
exactly  in  so  far,  for  me,  will  his  authority  in 
any  matter  touching  the  spiritual  world  be  weak- 
ened. 

With  respect  to  the  first  half  of  my  answer,  I 
have  pointed  out  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
as  given  in  the  first  Gospel,  is,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  best  critics,  a  "  mosaic  work  "  of  materials 
derived  from  different  sources,  and  I  do  not  under- 
stand that  this  statement  is  challenged.  The  only 
other  Gospel — the  third — which  contains  some- 
thing like  it,  makes,  not  only  the  discourse,  but  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  was  delivered,  very 
different.  Now,  it  is  one  thing  to  say  that  there 
was  something  real  at  the  bottom  of  the  two 
discourses — which  is  quite  possible ;  and  another 
to  affirm  that  we  have  any  right  to  say  what  that 
something  was,  or  to  fix  upon  any  particular 
phrase  and  declare  it  to  be  a  genuine  utterance. 
Those  who  pursue  theology  as  a  science,  and  bring 
to  the  study  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  ways  of 
ancient  historians,  will  find  no  difficulty  in  provid- 
ing illustrations  of  my  meaning.     I  may  supply 


350  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY 


IX 


one  which  has    come    within   range   of  my  own 
limited  vision. 

In  Josephus's  "  History  of  the  Wars  of  the  Jews  " 
(chap,  xix.),  that  writer  reports  a  speech  which 
he  says  Herod  made  at  the  opening  of  a  war  with 
the  Arabians.  It  is  in  the  first  person,  and  would 
naturally  be  supposed  by  the  reader  to  be  intended 
for  a  true  version  of  what  Herod  said.  In  the 
"  Antiquities,"  written  some  seventeen  years  later, 
the  same  writer  gives  another  report,  also  in  the 
first  person,  of  Herod's  speech  on  the  same 
occasion.  This  second  oration  is  twice  as  long  as 
the  first  and,  though  the  general  tenor  of  the  two 
speeches  is  pretty  much  the  same,  there  is  hardly 
any  verbal  identity,  and  a  good  deal  of  matter  is 
introduced  into  the  one,  which  is  absent  from  the 
other.  Josephus  prides  himself  on  his  accuracy  ; 
people  whose  fathers  might  have  heard  Herod's 
oration  were  his  contemporaries;  and  yet  his 
historical  sense  is  so  curiously  undeveloped  that 
he  can,  quite  innocently,  perpetrate  an  obvious 
literary  fabrication ;  for  one  of  the  two  accounts 
must  be  incorrect.  Now,  if  I  am  asked  whether  I 
believe  that  Herod  made  some  particular  state- 
ment on  this  occasion  ;  whether,  for  example,  he 
uttered  the  pious  aphorism,  "  Where  God  is,  there 
is. both  multitude  and  courage,"  which  is  given  in 
the  "  Antiquities,"  but  not  in  the  "  Wars,"  I  am 
compelled  to  say  I  do  not  know.  One  of  the  two 
reports  must  be  erroneous,  possibly  both  are :  at 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  351 

any  rate,  I  cannot  tell  how  much  of  either  is  true. 
And,  if  some  fervent  admirer  of  the  Idumean 
should  build  up  a  theory  of  Herod's  piety  upon 
Josephus's  evidence  that  he  propounded  the 
aphorism,  is  it  a  "  mere  evasion  "  to  say,  in  reply, 
that  the  evidence  that  he  did  utter  it  is  worth- 
less ? 

It  appears  again  that,  adopting  the  tactics  of 
Conachar  when  brought  face  to  face  with  Hal  o' 
the  Wynd,  I  have  been  trying  to  get  my  simple- 
minded  adversary  to  follow  me  on  a  wild-goose 
chase  through  the  early  history  of  Christianity,  in 
the  hope  of  escaping  impending  defeat  on  the 
main  issue.  But  I  may  be  permitted  to  point  out 
that  there  is  an  alternative  hypothesis  which 
equally  fits  the  facts;  and  that,  after  all,  there 
may  have  been  method  in  the  madness  of  my 
supposed  panic. 

For  suppose  it  to  be  established  that  Gentile 
Christianity  was  a  totally  different  thing  from  the 
Nazarenism  of  Jesus  and  his  immediate  disciples  ; 
suppose  it  to  be  demonstrable  that,  as  early  as  the 
sixth  decade  of  our  era  at  least,  there  were  violent 
divergencies  of  opinion  among  the  followers  of 
Jesus  ;  suppose  it  to  be  hardly  doubtful  that  the 
Gospels  and  the  Acts  took  their  present  shapes 
under  the  influence  of  those  divergencies ;  sup- 
pose that  their  authors,  and  those  through  whose 
hands  they  passed,  had  notions  of  historical  vera- 
city not  more  eccentric  than  those  which  Josephus 
138 


352  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

occasionally  displays :  surely  the  chances  that  the 
Gospels  are  altogether  trustworthy  records  of  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  become  very  slender.  And, 
since  the  whole  of  the  case  of  the  other  side  is 
based  on  the  supposition  that  they  are  accurate 
records  (especially  of  speeches,  about  which  ancient 
historians  are  so  curiously  loose),  I  really  do  ven- 
ture to  submit  that  this  part  of  my  argument  bears 
very  seriously  on  the  main  issue ;  and,  as  ratio- 
cination, is  sound  to  the  core. 

Again,  when  I  passed  by  the  topic  of  the 
speeches  of  Jesus  on  the  Cross,  it  appears  that  I 
could  have  had  no  other  motive  than  the  dictates 
of  my  native  evasiveness.  An  ecclesiastical  dig- 
nitary may  have  respectable  reasons  for  declining 
a  fencing  match  "  in  sight  of  Gethsemane  and 
Calvary  "  ;  but  an  ecclesiastical  "  Infidel "  !  Never. 
It  is  obviously  impossible  that,  in  the  belief  that 
"  the  greater  includes  the  less,"  I,  having  declared 
the  Gospel  evidence  in  general,  as  to  the  sayings  of 
Jesus,  to  be  of  questionable  value,  thought  it  need- 
less to  select  for  illustration  of  my  views,  those 
particular  instances  which  were  likely  to  be  most 
offensive  to  persons  of  another  way  of  thinking. 
But  any  supposition  that  may  have  been  enter- 
tained that  the  old  familiar  tones  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical war-drum  will  tempt  me  to  engage  in  such 
needless  discussion  had  better  be  renounced.  J 
shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  Let  it  suffice  that 
I   ask  my    readers  to  turn  to  the  twenty -third 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  353 

chapter  of  Luke  (revised  version),  verse  thirty-four, 
and  he  will  find  in  the  margin 

Some  ancient  authorities  omit  :  And  Jesus  said  "  Father,  for- 
give them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

So  that,  even  as  late  as  the  fourth  century, 
there  were  ancient  authorities,  indeed  some  of  the 
most  ancient  and  weightiest,  who  either  did  not 
know  of  this  utterance,  so  often  quoted  as  char- 
acteristic of  Jesus,  or  did  not  believe  it  had  been 
uttered. 

Many  years  ago,  I  received  an  anonymous  letter, 
which  abused  me  heartily  for  my  want  of  moral 
courage  in  not  speaking  out.  I  thought  that  one 
of  the  oddest  charges  an  anonymous  letter- writer 
could  bring.  But  I  am  not  sure  that  the  plentiful 
sowing  of  the  pages  of  the  article  with  which  I  am 
dealing  with  accusations  of  evasion,  may  not  seem 
odder  to  those  who  consider  that  the  main  streno-th 
of  the  answers  with  which  I  have  been  favoured 
(in  this  review  and  elsewhere)  is  devoted,  not  to 
an)7thing  in  the  text  of  my  first  paper,  but  to  a 
note  which  occurs  at  p.  212.     In  this  I  say : 

Dr.  Wace  tells  us  :  "  It  may  be  asked  how  far  we  can  rely  on 
the  accounts  we  possess  of  our  Lord's  teaching  on  these  subjects." 
And  he  seems  to  think  the  question  appropriately  answered  by 
the  asseri ion  that  it  "ought  to  be  regarded  as  settled  by  M. 
Kenan's  practical  surrender  of  the  adverse  case." 

I  requested  Dr.  Wace  to  point  out  the  passages 
of  M.  Renan's  works  in  which,  as  he  affirms,  this 


354  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

"  practical  surrender "  (not  merely  as  to  the  age 
and  authorship  of  the  Gospels,  be  it  observed,  but 
as  to  their  historical  value)  is  made,  and  he  has 
been  so  good  as  to  do  so.  Now  let  us  consider 
the  parts  of  Dr.  Wace's  citation  from  Penan  which 
are  relevant  to  the  issue  : — 

The  author  of  this  Gospel  [Luke]  is  certainly  the  same  as  the 
author  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  Now  the  author  of  the 
Acts  seems  to  be  a  companion  of  St.  Paul — a  character  which 
accords  completely  with  St.  Luke.  I  know  that  more  than  one 
objection  may  be  opposed  to  this  reasoning  :  but  one  thing,  at 
all  events,  is  beyond  doubt,  namely,  that  the  author  of  the 
third  Gospel  and  of  the  Acts  is  a  man  who  belonged  to  the 
second  apostolic  generation  ;  and  this  suffices  for  our  purpose. 

This  is  a  curious  "  practical  surrender  of  the 
adverse  case."  M.  Penan  thinks  that  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  author  of  the  third  Gospel  is  the 
author  of  the  Acts — a  conclusion  in  which  I 
suppose  critics  generally  agree.  He  goes  on  to 
remark  that  this  person  seems  to  be  a  companion 
of  St.  Paul,  and  adds  that  Luke  was  a  companion 
of  St.  Paul.  Then,  somewhat  needlessly,  M. 
Penan  points  out  that  there  is  more  than  one 
objection  to  jumping,  from  such  data  as  these,  to 
the  conclusion  that  "  Luke  "  is  the  writer  of  the 
third  Gospel.  And,  finally,  M.  Penan  is  content 
to  reduce  that  which  is  "  beyond  doubt "  to  the 
fact  that  the  author  of  the  two  books  is  a  man  of 
the  second  apostolic  generation.  Well,  it  seems  to 
me  that  I  could  agree  with  all  that  M.  Renan 


TT  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  355 

considers  "  beyond  doubt "  here,  without  surren- 
dering anything,  either  "  practically  "  or  theoretic- 
ally. 

Dr.  Wace  ("Nineteenth  Century,"  March,  p. 
363)  states  that  he  derives  the  above  citation 
from  the  preface  to  the  15th  edition  of  the  "  Yie 
de  Jesus."  My  copy  of  "  Les  Evangiles,  dated 
1877,  contains  a  list  of  Kenan's  "  GEuvres  Com- 
pletes," at  the  head  of  which  I  find  "Yie  de 
Jesus,"  15e  edition.  It  is,  therefore,  a  later  work 
than  the  edition  of  the  "  Yie  de  Jesus  "  which  Dr. 
Wace  quotes.  Now  "  Les  Evangiles,"  as  its  name 
implies,  treats  fully  of  the  questions  respecting 
the  date  and  authorship  of  the  Gospels ;  and  any 
one  who  desired,  not  merely  to  use  M.  Kenan's 
expressions  for  controversial  purposes,  but  to  give 
a  fair  account  of  his  views  in  their  full  signifi- 
cance, would,  I  think,  refer  to  the  later  source. 

If  this  course  had  been  taken,  Dr.  Wace  might 
have  found  some  as  decided  expressions  of  opinion, 
in  favour  of  Luke's  authorship  of  the  third  Gospel, 
as  he  has  discovered  in  "  The  Apostles."  I  men- 
tion this  circumstance,  because  I  desire  to  point 
out  that,  taking  even  the  strongest  of  Kenan's 
statements,  I  am  still  at  a  loss  to  see  how  it 
justifies  that  large-sounding  phrase,  "  practical 
surrender  of  the  adverse  case."  For,  on  p.  438  of 
"  Les  Evangiles,"  Kenan  speaks  of  the  way  in 
which  Luke's  "  excellent  intentions  "  have  led  him 
to  torture  history  in  the  Acts ;  he  declares  Luke 


356  AGNOSTICISM .  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

to  be  the  founder  of  that  "  eternal  fiction  which  is 
called  ecclesiastical  history "  ;  and,  on  the  pre- 
ceding page,  he  talks  of  the  "  myth "  of  the 
Ascension — with  its  "  mise  en  scene  voulue"  At 
p.  435,  I  find  "  Luc,  ou  l'auteur  quel  qu'il  soit  du 
troisieme  Evangile " ;  at  p.  280,  the  accounts  of 
the  Passion,  the  death  and  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus,  are  said  to  be  "  peu  historiques  "  ;  at  p.  283, 
"  La  valeur  historique  du  troisieme  Evangile  est 
surement  moindre  que  celles  des  deux  premiers." 
A  Pyrrhic  sort  of  victory  for  orthodoxy,  this 
"  surrender  "  !  And,  all  the  while,  the  scientific 
student  of  theology  knows  that,  the  more  reason 
there  may  be  to  believe  that  Luke  was  the  com- 
panion of  Paul,  the  more  doubtful  becomes  his 
credibility,  if  he  really  wrote  the  Acts.  For,  in 
that  case,  he  could  not  fail  to  have  been  acquainted 
with  Paul's  account  of  the  Jerusalem  conference, 
and  he  must  have  consciously  misrepresented  it. 

We  may  next  turn  to  the  essential  part  of  Dr. 
Wace's  citation  ("  Nineteenth  Century,"  p.  365) 
touching  the  first  Gospel : — 

St.  Matthew  evidently  deserves  peculiar  confidence  for 
the  discourses.  Here  are  the  "oracles" — the  very  notes  taken 
while  the  memory  of  the  instruction  of  Jesus  was  living  and 
definite. 

M.  Renan  here  expresses  the  very  general 
opinion  as  to  the  existence  of  a  collection  of 
"  logia,"  having  a  different  origin  from  the  text 


IX  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  357 

in  which  they  are  embedded,  in  Matthew. 
"Notes"  are  somewhat  suggestive  of  a  shortnand 
writer,  but  the  suggestion  is  unintentional,  for  M. 
Renan  assumes  that  these  "  notes "  were  taken, 
not  at  the  time  of  the  delivery  of  the  "logia"  but 
subsequently,  while  (as  he  assumes)  the  memory 
of  them  was  living  and  definite ;  so  that,  in  this 
very  citation,  M.  Renan  leaves  open  the  question 
of  the  general  historical  value  of  the  first  Gospel ; 
while  it  is  obvious  that  the  accuracy  of  "  notes  " 
taken,  not  at  the  time  of  delivery,  but  from 
memory,  is  a  matter  about  which  more  than  one 
opinion  may  be  fairly  held.  Moreover,  Renan 
expressly  calls  attention  to  the  difficulty  of  dis- 
tinguishing the  authentic  "  logia "  from  later 
additions  of  the  same  kind  ("  Les  Evangiles," 
p.  201).  The  fact  is,  there  is  no  contradiction 
here  to  that  opinion  about  the  first  Gospel  which 
is  expressed  in  "  Les  Evangiles  "  (p.  175). 

The  text  of  the  so-called  Matthew  supposes  the  pre-existence 
of  that  of  Mark,  and  does  little  more  than  complete  it.  He 
completes  it  in  two  fashions — first,  by  the  insertion  of  those 
long  discourses  which  gave  their  chief  value  to  the  Hebrew 
Gospels  ;  then  by  adding  traditions  of  a  more  modern  forma- 
tion, results  of  successive  developments  of  the  legend,  and  to 
which  the  Christian  consciousness  already  attached  infinite 
value. 

M.  Renan  goes  on  to  suggest  that  besides 
"  Mark,"  "  pseudo-Matthtw  7'  used  an  Aramaic 
version  of  the  Gospel,  originally  set  forth  in  that 


358  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  is 

dialect.     Finally,  as  to  the  second  Gospel  ("  Nine- 
teenth Century,"  p.  365) : — 

He  [Mark]  is  fall  of  minute  observations,  proceeding,  beyond 
doubt,  from  an  eye-witness.  There  is  nothing  to  conflict  with 
the  supposition  that  this  eye-witness  .  .  .  was  the  Apostle 
Peter  himself,  as  Papias  has  it. 

Let  us  consider  this  citation  by  the  light  of 

"  Les  Evangiles  "  : — - 

This  work,  although  composed  after  the  death  of  Peter,  was, 
in  a  sense,  the  work  of  Peter  ;  it  represents  the  way  in  which 
Peter  was  accustomed  to  relate  the  life  of  Jesus  (p.  116). 

M.  Renan  goes  on  to  say  that,  as  an  historical 
document,  the  Gospel  of  Mark  has  a  great 
superiority  (p.  116)  ;  but  Mark  has  a  motive  for 
omitting  the  discourses,  and  he  attaches  a  "  puerile 
importance"  to  miracles  (p.  117).  The  Gospel  of 
Mark  is  less  a  legend,  than  a  biography  written 
with  credulity  (p.  118).  It  would  be  rash  to  say 
that  Mark  has  not  been  interpolated  and  re- 
touched (p.  120). 

If  any  one  thinks  that  I  have  not  been  warranted 
in  drawing  a  sharp  distinction  between  "  scientific 
theologians"  and  "counsels  for  creeds'';  or  that 
my  warning  against  the  too  ready  acceptance  of 
certain  declarations  as  to  the  state  of  biblical 
criticism  was  needless ;  or  that  my  anxiety  as  to 
the  sense  of  the  word  "practical"  was  super- 
fluous ;  let  him  compare  the  statement  that  M. 
Renan   has  made  a  "  practical  surrender  of  the 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  359 

adverse  case  "  with  the  facts  just  set  forth.  For 
what  is  the  adverse  case  ?  The  question,  as  Dr. 
Wace  puts  it,  is,  "  It  may  be  asked  how  far  can 
we  rely  on  the  accounts  we  possess  of  our  Lord's 
teaching  on  these  subjects."  It  will  be  obvious 
that  M.  Renan's  statements  amount  to  an  adverse 
answer — to  a  "  practical "  denial  that  any  great 
reliance  can  be  placed  on  these  accounts.  He 
does  not  believe  that  Matthew,  the  apostle,  wrote 
the  first  Gospel ;  he  does  not  profess  to  know  who 
is  responsible  for  the  collection  of  "  logia,"  or  how 
many  of  them  are  authentic  ;  though  he  calls  the 
second  Gospel  the  most  historical,  he  points  out 
that  it  is  written  with  credulity,  and  may  have 
been  interpolated  and  retouched  ;  and,  as  to  the 
author,  "  quel  qu'il  soit,"  of  the  third  Gospel,  who 
is  to  "  rely  "on  the  accounts  "  of  a  writer,  who 
deserves  the  cavalier  treatment  which  "  Luke " 
meets  with  at  M.  Renan's  hands  ? 

I  repeat  what  I  have  already  more  than  once 
said,  that  the  question  of  the  age  and  the  author- 
ship of  the  Gospels  has  not,  in  my  judgment,  the 
importance  which  is  so  commonly  assigned  to  it ; 
for  the  simple  reason  that  the  reports,  even  of 
eye-witnesses,  would  not  suffice  to  justify  belief  in 
a  large  and  essential  part  of  their  contents ;  on 
the  contrary,  these  reports  would  discredit  the 
witnesses.  The  Gadarene  miracle,  for  example,  is 
so  extremely  improbable,  that  the  fact  of  its  being 
reported  by  three,  even  independent,  authorities 


3G0  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  ix 

could  not  justify  belief  in  it,  unless  we  had  the 
clearest  evidence  as  to  their  capacity  as  observers 
and  as  interpreters  of  their  observations.  But  it 
is  evident  that  the  three  authorities  are  not  inde- 
pendent ;  that  they  have  simply  adopted  a  legend, 
of  which  there  were  two  versions ;  and  instead  of 
their  proving  its  truth,  it  suggests  their  super- 
stitious credulity  :  so  that  if  "  Matthew,"  "  Mark/' 
and  "  Luke  "  are  really  responsible  for  the  Gospels, 
it  is  not  the  better  for  the  Gadarene  story,  but 
the  worse  for  them. 

A  wonderful  amount  of  controversial  capital 
has  been  made  out  of  my  assertion  in  the  note  to 
which  I  have  referred,  as  an  obiter  dictum  of  no 
consequence  to  my  argument,  that  if  Kenan's 
work1  were  non-extant,  the  main  results  of 
biblical  criticism,  as  set  forth  in  the  works  of 
Strauss,  Baur,  Reuss,  and  Volkmar,  for  example, 
would  not  be  sensibly  affected.  I  thought  I  had 
explained  it  satisfactorily  already,  but  it  seems 
that  my  explanation  has  only  exhibited  still  more 
of  my  native  perversity,  so  I  ask  for  one  more 
chance. 

In  the  course  of  the  historical  development  of 
any  branch  of  science,  what  is  universally  observed 
is  this  :  that  the  men  who  make  epochs,  and  are 
the  real  architects  of  the  fabric  of  exact  know- 
ledge, are  those  who  introduce  fruitful  ideas  or 

1  I  trust  it  may  not  be  supposed  that  I  undervalue  M.  Renan's 
labours,  or  intended  to  speak  slightingly  of  them. 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  361 

methods.  As  a  rule,  the  man  who  does  this 
pushes  his  idea,  or  his  method,  too  far ;  or,  if  he 
does  not,  his  school  is  sure  to  do  so  ;  and  those 
who  follow  have  to  reduce  his  work  to  its  proper 
value,  and  assign  it  its  place  in  the  whole.  Not 
unfrequently,  they,  in  their  turn,  overdo  the 
critical  process,  and,  in  trying  to  eliminate  error, 
throw  away  truth. 

Thus,  as  I  said,  Linnaeus,  Buffon,  Cuvier, 
Lamarck,  really  "  set  forth  the  results "  of  a 
developing  science,  although  they  often  heartily 
contradict  one  another.  Notwithstanding  this 
circumstance,  modern  classificatory  method  and 
nomenclature  have  largely  grown  out  of  the  work 
of  Linnaeus ;  the  modern  conception  of  biology,  as 
a  science,  and  of  its  relation  to  climatology,  geo- 
graphy, and  geology,  are,  as  largely,  rooted  in  the 
results  of  the  labours  of  Buffon  ;  comparative 
anatomy  and  palaeontology  owe  a  vast  debt  to 
Cuvier 's  results ;  while  invertebrate  zoology  and 
the  revival  of  the  idea  of  evolution  are  intimately 
dependent  on  the  results  of  the  work  of  Lamarck. 
In  other  words,  the  main  results  of  biology  up  to 
the  early  years  of  this  century  are  to  be  found  in, 
or  spring  out  of,  the  works  of  these  men. 

So,  if  I  mistake  not,  Strauss,  if  he  did  not 
originate  the  idea  of  taking  the  mythopceic  faculty 
into  account  in  the  development  of  the  Gospel 
narratives,  and  though  he  may  have  exaggerated 
the   influence  of  that  faculty,   obliged   scientific 


362  AGNOSTICISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY  ix 

theology,  hereafter,  to  take  that  element  into 
serious  consideration ;  so  Baur,  in  giving  promin- 
ence to  the  cardinal  fact  of  the  divergence  of  the 
Nazarene  and  Pauline  tendencies  in  the  primitive 
Church;  so  Reuss,  in  setting  a  marvellous  example 
of  the  cool  and  dispassionate  application  of  the 
principles  of  scientific  criticism  over  the  whole 
field  of  Scripture ;  so  Volkmar,  in  his  clear  and 
forcible  statement  of  the  Nazarene  limitations  of 
Jesus,  contributed  results  of  permanent  value  in 
scientific  theology.  I  took  these  names  as  they 
occurred  to  me.  Undoubtedly,  I  might  have 
advantageously  added  to  them ;  perhaps,  I  might 
have  made  a  better  selection.  But  it  really  is 
absurd  to  try  to  make  out  that  I  did  not  know- 
that  these  writers  widely  disagree  ;  and  I  believe 
that  no  scientific  theologian  will  deny  that,  in 
principle,  what  I  have  said  is  perfectly  correct. 
Ecclesiastical  advocates,  of  course,  cannot  be 
expected  to  take  this  view  of  the  matter.  To 
them,  these  mere  seekers  after  truth,  in  so  far  as 
their  results  are  unfavourable  to  the  creed  the 
clerics  have  to  support,  are  more  or  less  "  infidels," 
or  favourers  of  "  infidelity  " ;  and  the  only  thing 
they  care  to  see,  or  probably  can  see,  is  the  fact 
that,  in  a  great  many  matters,  the  truth-seekers 
differ  from  one  another,  and  therefore  can  easily 
be  exhibited  to  the  public,  as  if  they  did  nothing 
else ;  as  if  any  one  who  referred  to  their  having, 
each  and  all,  contributed  his  share  to  the  results 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  363 

of  theological  science,  was  merely  showing  his 
ignorance ;  and  as  if  a  charge  of  inconsistency 
could  be  based  on  the  fact  that  he  himself  often 
disagrees  with  what  they  say.  I  have  never 
lent  a  shadow  of  foundation  to  the  assumption 
that  I  am  a  follower  of  either  Strauss,  or  Batir,  or 
Reuss,  or  Yolkmar,  or  Renan ;  my  debt  to  these 
eminent  men — so  far  my  superiors  in  theological 
knowledge — is,  indeed,  great ;  yet  it  is  not  for 
their  opinions,  but  for  those  I  have  been  able  to 
form  for  myself,  by  their  help. 

In  Agnosticism :  a  Be  joinder  (p.  266),  I  have 
referred  to  the  difficulties  under  which  those  pro- 
fessors of  the  science  of  theology,  whose  tenure  of 
their  posts  depends  on  the  results  of  their  investi- 
gations, must  labour ;  and,  in  a  note,  I  add — 

Imagine  that  all  our  chairs  of  Astronomy  had  been  founded 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  that  their  incumbents  were 
bound  to  sign  Ptolemaic  articles.  In  that  case,  with  every 
respect  for  the  efforts  of  persons  thus  hampered  to  attain  and 
expound  the  truth,  I  think  men  of  common  sense  would  go 
elsewhere  to  learn  astronomy. 

I  did  not  write  this  paragraph  without  a  know- 
ledge that  its  sense  would  be  open  to  the  kind  of 
perversion  which  it  has  suffered ;  but,  if  that  was 
clear,  the  necessity  for  the  statement  was  still 
clearer.  It  is  my  deliberate  opinion  :  I  reiterate 
it ;  and  I  say  that,  in  my  judgment,  it  is  extremely 
inexpedient  that  any  subject  which  calls  itself  a 
science  should  be  entrusted  to  teachers. who  are 


364  AGNOSTICISM   AND   CHEISTIANITY  ix 

debarred  from  freely  following  out  scientific 
methods  to  their  legitimate  conclusions,  whatever 
those  conclusions  may  be.  If  I  may  borrow  a 
phrase  paraded  at  the  Church  Congress,  I  think  it 
"  ought  to  be  unpleasant "  for  any  man  of  scieffce 
to  find  himself  in  the  position  of  such  a  teacher. 

Human  nature  is  not  altered  by  seating  it  in  a 
professorial  chair,  even  of  theology.  I  have  very 
little  doubt  that  if,  in  the  year  1859,  the  tenure 
of  my  office  had  depended  upon  my  adherence  to 
the  doctrines  of  Cuvier,  the  objections  to  them  set 
forth  in  the  "  Origin  of  Species  "  would  have  had 
a  halo  of  gravity  about  them  that,  being  free  to 
teach  what  I  pleased,  I  failed  to  discover.  And, 
in  making  that  statement,  it  does  not  appear  to 
me  that  I  am  confessing  that  I  should  have  been 
debarred  by  "  selfish  interests "  from  making 
candid  inquiry,  or  that  I  should  have  been  biassed 
by  "  sordid  motives."  I  hope  that  even  such  a 
fragment  of  moral  sense  as  may  remain  in  an 
ecclesiastical  "infidel"  might  have  got  me  through 
the  difficulty ;  but  it  would  be  unworthy  to  deny, 
or  disguise,  the  fact  that  a  very  serious  difficulty 
must  have  been  created  for  me  by  the  nature  of 
my  tenure.  And  let  it  be  observed  that  the 
temptation,  in  my  case,  would  have  been  far 
slighter  than  in  that  of  a  professor  of  theology ; 
whatever  biological  doctrine  I  had  repudiated, 
nobody  I  cared  for  would  have  thought  the  worse 
of  me  for  so  doing.      No  scientific  journals  would 


IX  AGNOSTICISM  AND   CHRISTIANITY  365 

have  howled  me  down,  as  the  religious  newspapers 
howled  down  my  too  honest  friend,  the  late 
Bishop  of  Natal ;  nor  would  my  colleagues  of  the 
Royal  Society  have  turned  their  backs  upon  me, 
as  his  episcopal  colleagues  boj^cotted  him. 

I  say  these  facts  are  obvious,  and  that  it  is 
wholesome  and  needful  that  they  should  be 
stated.  It  is  in  the  interests  of  theology,  if  it  be 
a  science,  and  it  is  in  the  interests  of  those 
teachers  of  theology  who  desire  to  be  something 
better  than  counsel  for  creeds,  that  it  should  be 
taken  to  heart.  The  seeker  after  theological 
truth  and  that  only,  will  no  more  suppose  that  I 
have  insulted  him,  than  the  prisoner  who  works 
in  fetters  will  try  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  me,  if  I 
sup-crest  that  he  would  get  on  better  if  the  fetters 
were  knocked  off ;  unless  indeed,  as  it  is  said  does 
happen  in  the  course  of  long  captivities,  that  the 
victim  at  length  ceases  to  feel  the  weight  of  his 
chains,  or  even  takes  to  hugging  them,  as  if  they 
were  honourable  ornaments.1 

1  To-day's  Times  contains  a  report  of  a  remarkable  speech  by- 
Prince  Bismarck,  in  which  he  tells  the  Reichstag  that  he  has 
long  given  up  investing  in  foreign  stock,  lest  so  doing  should 
mislead  his  judgment  in  his  transactions  with  foreign  states. 
Does  this  declaration  prove  that  the  Chancellor  accuses  himself 
of  being  " sordid ;'  and  "  selfish"  ;  or  does  it  not  rather  show 
that,  even  in  dealing  with  himself,  he  remains  the  man  of 
realities  ? 


X 

THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  HEED  OF  SWINE 

[1890] 

I  HAD  fondly  hoped  that  Mr.  Gladstone  and  I  had 
come  to  an  end  of  disputation,  and  that  the 
hatchet  of  war  was  finally  superseded  by  the 
calumet,  which,  as  Mr.  Gladstone,  I  believe, 
objects  to  tobacco,  I  was  quite  willing  to  smoke 
for  both.  But  I  have  had,  once  again,  to  discover 
that  the  adage  that  whoso  seeks  peace  will  ensue 
it,  is  a  somewhat  hasty  generalisation.  The 
renowned  warrior  with  whom  it  is  my  misfortune 
to  be  opposed  in  most  things  has  dug  up  the  axe 
and  is  on  the  war-path  once  more.  The  weapon 
has  been  wielded  with  all  the  dexterity  which 
long  practice  has  conferred  on  a  past  master  in 
craft,  whether  of  wood  or  state.  And  I  have 
reason  to  believe  that  the  simpler  sort  of  the 
great  tribe  which  he  heads,  imagine  that  my  scalp 
is  already  on  its  way  to  adorn  their  big  chiefs 
wigwam.     I   am   glad    therefore   to   be   able    to 


X      KEEPEES  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    367 

relieve  any  anxieties  which  my  friends  may 
entertain  without  delay.  I  assure  them  that  my 
skull  retains  its  normal  covering,  and  that  though, 
naturally,  I  may  have  felt  alarmed,  nothing 
serious  has  happened.  My  doughty  adversary 
has  merely  performed  a  war  dance,  and  his  blows 
have  for  the  most  part  cut  the  air.  I  regret  to 
add,  however,  that  by  misadventure,  and  I  am 
afraid  I  must  say  carelessness,  he  has  inflicted 
one  or  two  severe  contusions  on  himself. 

When  the  noise  of  approaching  battle  roused 
me  from  the  dreams  of  peace  which  occupy  my 
retirement,  I  was  glad  to  observe  (since  I  must 
fight)  that  the  campaign  was  to  be  opened  upon 
a  new  field.  When  the  contest  raged  over  the 
Pentateuchal  myth  of  the  creation,  Mr.  Gladstone's 
manifest  want  of  acquaintance  with  the  facts  and 
principles  involved  in  the  discussion,  no  less  than 
with  the  best  literature  on  his  own  side  of  the 
subject,  gave  me  the  uncomfortable  feeling  that  I 
had'  my  adversary  at  a  disadvantage.  The  sun  of 
science,  at  my  back,  was  in  his  eyes.  But,  on  the 
present  occasion,  we  are  happily  on  an  equality. 
History  and  Biblical  criticism  are  as  much,  or 
as  little,  my  vocation  as  they  are  that  of  Mr. 
Gladstone ;  the  blinding  from  too  much  light,  or 
the  blindness  from  too  little,  may  be  presumed  to 
be  equally  shared  by  both  of  us. 

Mr.  Gladstone  takes  up  his  new  position  in  the 
country  of  the  Gadarenes.     His  strategic   sense 

139 


368    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

justly  leads  him  to  see  that  the  authority  of  the 
teachings  of  the  synoptic  Gospels,  touching  the 
nature  of  the  spiritual  world,  turns  upon  the 
acceptance,  or  the  rejection,  of  the  Gadarene  and 
other  like  stories.  As  we  accept,  or  repudiate, 
such  histories  as  that  of  the  possessed  pigs,  so 
shall  we  accept,  or  reject,  the  witness  of  the 
synoptics  to  such  miraculous  interventions. 

It  is  exactly  because  these  stories  constitute 
the  key- stone  of  the  orthodox  arch,  that  I 
originally  drew  attention  to  them ;  and,  in  spite 
of  my  longing  for  peace,  I  am  truly  obliged  to 
Mr.  Gladstone  for  compelling  me  to  place  my  case 
before  the  public  once  more.  It  may  be  thought 
that  this  is  a  work  of  supererogation  by  those 
who  are  aware  that  my  essay  is  the  subject  of 
attack  in  a  work  so  largely  circulated  as  the 
"  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture  "  ;  and  who 
may  possibly,  in  their  simplicity,  assume  that  it 
must  be  truthfully  set  forth  in  that  work.  But 
the  warmest  admirers  of  Mr.  Gladstone  will  hardly 
be  prepared  to  maintain  that  mathematical  accu- 
racy in  stating  the  opinions  of  an  opponent  is  the 
most  prominent  feature  of  his  controversial  method. 
And  what  follows  will  show  that,  in  the  present 
case,  the  desire  to  be  fair  and  accurate,  the 
existence  of  which  I  am  bound  to  assume,  has 
not  borne  as  much  fruit  as  might  have  been 
expected. 

In  referring  to  the  statement  of  the   narrators, 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    369 

that  the  herd  of  swine  perished  in  consequence  of 
the  entrance  into  them  of  the  demons  by  the  per- 
mission, or  order,  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  I  said  : 

"  Everything  that  I  know  of  law  and  justice 
convinces  me  that  the  wanton  destruction  of  other 
people's  property  is  a  misdemeanour  of  evil 
example "  ("  Nineteenth  Century,"  February, 
1889,  p.  172). 

Mr.  Gladstone  has  not  found  it  convenient  to 
cite  this  passage  ;  and,  in  view  of  various  con- 
siderations, I  dare  not  assume  that  he  would  assent 
to  it,  without  sundry  subtle  modifications  which, 
for  me,  might  possibly  rob  it  of  its  argumentative 
value.  But,  until  the  proposition  is  seriously 
controverted,  I  shall  assume  it  to  be  true,  and 
content  myself  with  warning  the  reader  that 
neither  he  nor  I  have  any  grounds  for  assuming 
Mr.  Gladstone's  concurrence.  With  this  caution, 
I  proceed  to  remark  that  I  think  it  may  be 
granted  that  the  people  whose  herd  of  2000  swine 
(more  or  fewer)  was  suddenly  destroyed  suffered 
great  loss  and  damage.  And  it  is  quite  certain 
that  the  narrators  of  the  Gadarene  story  do  not, 
in  any  way,  refer  to  the  point  of  morality  and 
legality  thus  raised ;  as  I  said,  they  show  no 
inkling  of  the  moral  and  legal  difficulties  which 
arise. 

Such  being  the  facts  of  the  case,  I  submit  that 
for  those  who  admit  the  principle  laid  down,  the 
conclusion  which  I  have  drawn  necessarily  follows; 


370    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

though  I  repeat  that,  since  Mr.  Gladstone  does 
not  explicitly  admit  the  principle,  I  am  far  from 
suggesting  that  he  is  bound  by  its  logical  con- 
sequences. However,  I  distinctly  reiterate  the 
opinion  that  any  one  who  acted  in  the  way 
described  in  the  story  would,  in  my  judgment, 
be  guilty  of  "  a  misdemeanour  of  evil  example." 
About  that  point  I  desire  to  leave  no  ambiguity 
whatever;  and  it  follows  that,  if  I  believed  the 
story,  I  should  have  no  hesitation  in  applying 
this  judgment  to  the  chief  actor  in  it. 

But,  if  any  one  will  do  me  the  favour  to  turn 
to  the  paper  in  which  these  passages  occur,  he 
will  find  that  a  considerable  part  of  it  is  devoted 
to  the  exposure  of  the  familiar  trick  of  the 
"  counsel  for  creeds/'  who,  when  they  wish  to 
profit  by  the  easily  stirred  odium  theologicum,  are 
careful  to  confuse  disbelief  in  a  narrative  of  a 
man's  act,  or  disapproval  of  the  acts  as  narrated, 
with  disbelieving  and  vilipending  the  man  himself. 
If  I  say  that  "  according  to  paragraphs  in  several 
newspapers,  my  valued  Separatist  friend  A.'  B.  has 
houghed  a  lot  of  cattle,  which  he  considered  to  be 
unlawfully  in  the  possession  of  an  Irish  land- 
grabber  ;  that,  in  my  opinion,  any  such  act  is  a 
misdemeanour  of  evil  example  ;  but,  that  I  utterly 
disbelieve  the  whole  story  and  have  no  doubt  that 
it  is  a  mere  fabrication  :  "  it  really  appears  to  me 
that,  if  any  one  charges  me  with  calling  A.  B.  an 
immoral  misdemeanant,  I   should  be  justified  in 


X  KEEPERS   OF   THE   HERD   OF   SWINE         371 

using  very  strong  language  respecting  either  his 
sanity  or  his  veracity.  And,  if  an  analogous  charge 
has  been  brought  in  reference  to  the  Gadarene 
story,  there  is  certainly  no  excuse  producible,  on 
account  of  any  lack  of  plain  speech  on  my  part. 
Surely  no  language  can  be  more  explicit  than  that 
which  follows  : 

"  I  can  discern  no  escape  from  this  dilemma ; 
either  Jesus  said  what  he  is  reported  to  have  said, 
or  he  did  not.  In  the  former  case,  it  is  inevitable 
that  his  authority  on  matters  connected  with  the 
'  unseen  world '  should  be  roughly  shaken  ;  in  the 
latter,  the  blow  falls  upon  the  authority  of  the 
synoptic  Gospels"  (p.  173).  "The  choice  then 
lies  between  discrediting  those  who  compiled  the 
Gospel  biographies  and  disbelieving  the  Master, 
whom  they,  simple  souls,  thought  to  honour  by 
preserving  such  traditions  of  the  exercise  of  his 
authority  over  Satan's  invisible  world  "  (p.  174)- 
And  I  leave  no  shadow  of  doubt  as  to  my  own 
choice :  "  After  what  has  been  said,  I  do  not 
think  that  any  sensible  man,  unless  he  happen  to 
be  angry,  will  accuse  me  of  '  contradicting  the  Lord 
and  his  Apostles '  if  I  reiterate  my  total  disbelief 
in  the  whole  Gadarene  story  "  (p.  178). 

I  am  afraid,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Gladstone  must 
have  been  exceedingly  angry  when  he  committed 
himself  to  such  a  statement  as  follows : 

So,  then,  after  eighteen  centuries  of  worship  offered  to  our 
Lord  by  the  most  cultivated,  the  most  developed,  and  the  most 


372    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

progressive  portion  of  the  human  race,  it  has  been  reserved  to  a 
scientific  inquirer  to  discover  that  He  was  no  better  than  a  law- 
breaker and  an  evil-doer.  .  .  .  How,  in  such  a  matter,  came  the 
honours  of  originality  to  be  reserved  to  our  time  and  to  Professor 
Huxley?    (Pp.  269,  270.) 

Truly,  the  hatchet  is  hardly  a  weapon  of  pre- 
cision, but  would  seem  to  have  rather  more  the 
character  of  the  boomerang,  which  returns  to 
damage  the  reckless  thrower.  Doubtless  such 
incidents  are  somewhat  ludicrous.  But  they  have 
a  very  serious  side  ;  and,  if  I  rated  the  opinion  of 
those  who  blindly  follow  Mr.  Gladstone's  leading, 
but  not  light,  in  these  matters,  much  higher  than 
the  great  Duke  of  Wellington's  famous  standard 
of  minimum  value,  I  think  I  might  fairly  beg 
them  to  reflect  upon  the  general  bearings  of  this 
particular  example  of  his  controversial  method. 
I  imagine  it  can  hardly  commend  itself  to  their 
cool  judgment. 

After  this  tragi-comical  ending  to  what  an  old 
historian  calls  a  "robustious  and  rough  cominp; 
on  " ;  and  after  some  praises  of  the  provisions  of 
the  Mosaic  law  in  the  matter  of  not  eating  pork — 
in  which,  as  pork  disagrees  with  me  and  for  some 
other  reasons,  I  am  much  disposed  to  concur, 
though  I  do  not  see  what  they  have  to  do  with 
the  matter  in  hand — comes  the  serious  onslaught. 

Mr.  Huxley,  exercising  his  rapid  judgment  on  the  text,  does 
not  appear  to  have  encumbered  himself  with  the  labour  of  in- 
quiring what  anybody  else  had  known  or  said  about  it.     He  has 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    373 

thus  missed  a  point  which  might  have  been  set  up  in  support  of 
his  accusation  against  our  Lord.    (P.  273.) 

Unhappily  for  my  comfort,  I  have  been  much 
exercised  in  controversy  during  the  past  thirty 
years  ;  and  the  only  compensation  for  the  loss  of 
time  and  the  trials  of  temper  which  it  has  inflicted 
upon  me,  is  that  I  have  come  to  regard  it  as  a 
branch  of  the  fine  arts,  and  to  take  an  impartial  and 
aesthetic  interest  in  the  way  in  which  it  is  conducted, 
even  by  those  whose  efforts  are  directed  against 
myself.  Now,  from  the  purely  artistic  point  of 
view  (which,  as  we  are  all  being  told,  has  nothing  to 
do  with  morals),  I  consider  it  an  axiom,  that  one 
should  never  appear  to  doubt  that  the  other  side 
has  performed  the  elementary  duty  of  acquiring 
proper  elementary  information,  unless  there  is 
demonstrative  evidence  to  the  contrary.  And  I 
think,  though  I  admit  that  this  may  be  a  purely 
subjective  appreciation,  that  (unless  you  are  quite 
certain)  there  is  a  "  want  of  finish,"  as  a  great 
master  of  disputation  once  put  it,  about  the  sug- 
gestion that  your  opponent  has  missed  a  point  on 
his  own  side.  Because  it  may  happen  that  he 
has  not  missed  it  at  all,  but  only  thought  it  un- 
worthy of  serious  notice.  And  if  he  proves  that, 
the  suggestion  looks  foolish. 

Merely  noting  the  careful  repetition  of  a  charge, 
the  absurdity  of  which  has  been  sufficiently  ex- 
posed above,  I  now  ask  my  readers  to  accompany 
me  on  a  little  voyage  of  discovery  in  search  of  the 


374    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

side  on  which  the  rapid  judgment  and  the 
ignorance  of  the  literature  of  the  subject  lie.  I 
think  I  may  promise  them  very  little  trouble,  and 
a  good  deal  of  entertainment. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  of  opinion  that  the  Gadarene 
swinefolk  were . "  Hebrews  bound  by  the  Mosaic 
law  "  (p.  274) ;  and  he  conceives  that  it  has  not 
occurred  to  me  to  learn  what  may  be  said  in 
favour  of  and  against  this  view.  He  tells  us 
that 

Some  commentators  have  alleged  the  authority  of  Josephug 
for-  stating  that  Gadara  was  a  city  of  Greeks  rather  than  of  Jews, 
from  whence  it  might  be  inferred  that  to  keep  swine  was  inno- 
cent and  lawful.  (P.  273.) 

Mr.  Gladstone  then  goes  on  to  inform  his 
readers  that  in  his  painstaking  search  after  truth 
he  has  submitted  to  the  labour  of  personally 
examining  the  writings  of  Josephus.  Moreover, 
in  a  note,  he  positively  exhibits  an  acquaintance, 
in  addition,  with  the  works  of  Bishop  Wordsworth 
and  of  Archbishop  Trench  ;  and  even  shows  that 
he  has  read  Hudson's  commentary  on  Josephus. 
And  yet  people  say  that  our  Biblical  critics  do 
not  equal  the  Germans  in  research !  But  Mr. 
Gladstone's  citation  of  Cuvier  and  Sir  John 
Herschel  about  the  Creation  myth,  and  his  ignor- 
ance of  all  the  best  modern  writings  on  his  own 
side,  produced  a  great  impression  on  my  mind.  I 
have  had  the  audacity  to  suspect  that  his  ac- 
quaintance with  what  has  been  done  in  Biblical 


X  KEEPERS   OF   THE   HERD   OF   SWINE        375 

history  might  stand  at  no  higher  level  than  his 
information  about  the  natural  sciences.  However 
unwillingly,  I  have  felt  bound  to  consider  the 
possibility  that  Mr.  Gladstone's  labours  in  this 
matter  may  have  carried  him  no  further  than 
Josephus  and  the  worthy,  but  somewhat  antique, 
episcopal  and  other  authorities  to  whom  he  refers ; 
that  even  his  reading  of  Josephus  may  have  been 
of  the  most  cursory  nature,  directed  not  to  the 
understanding  of  his  author,  but  to  the  discovery 
of  useful  controversial  matter ;  and  that,  in  view 
of  the  not  inconsiderable  misrepresentation  of  my 
statements  to  which  I  have  drawn  attention,  it 
might  be  that  Mr.  Gladstone's  exposition  of  the 
evidence  of  Josephus  was  not  more  trustworthy. 
I  proceed  to  show  that  my  previsions  have  been 
fully  justified.  I  doubt  if  controversial  literature 
contains  anything  more  piquant  than  the  story  I 
have  to  unfold. 

That  I  should  be  reproved  for  rapidity  of  judg- 
ment is  very  just :  however  quaint  the  situation 
of  Mr.  Gladstone,  as  the  reprover,  may  seem  to 
people  blessed  with  a  sense  of  humour.  But  it  is 
a  quality,  the  defects  of  which  have  been  painfully 
obvious  to  me  all  my  life ;  and  I  try  to  keep  my 
Pegasus — at  best,  a  poor  Shetland  variety  of  that 
species  of  quadruped — at  a  respectable  jog-trot,  by 
loading  him  heavily  with  bales  of  reading.  Those 
who  took  the  trouble  to  study  my  paper  in  good 
faith   and    not   for   mere   controversial  purposes, 


376    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

have  a  right  to  know,  that  something  more  than  a 
hasty  glimpse  of  two  or  three  passages  of  Josephus 
(even  with  as  many  episcopal  works  thrown  in) 
lay  at  the  back  of  the  few  paragraphs  I  devoted  to 
the  Gadarene  story.  I  proceed  to  set  forth,  as 
briefly  as  I  can,  some  results  of  that  preparatory 
work.  My  artistic  principles  do  not  permit  me,  at 
present,  to  express  a  doubt  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  acquainted  with  the  facts  I  am  about  to 
mention  when  he  undertook  to  write.  But,  if  he 
did  know  them,  then  both  what  he  has  said  and 
what  he  has  not  said,  his  assertions  and  his 
omissions  alike,  will  require  a  paragraph  to  them- 
selves. 

The  common  consent  of  the  synoptic  Gospels 
affirms  that  the  miraculous  transference  of  devils 
from  a  man,  or  men,  to  sundry  pigs,  took  place 
somewhere  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Lake  of 
Tiberias  ;  "  on  the  other  side  of  the  sea  over 
against  Galilee,"  the  western  shore  being,  without 
doubt,  included  in  the  latter  province.  But  there 
is  no  such  concord  when  we  come  to  the  name  of 
the  part  of  the  eastern  shore,  on  which,  according 
to  the  story,  Jesus  and  his  disciples  landed.  In  the 
revised  version,  Matthew  calls  it  the  "  country  of 
the  Gadarenes : "  Luke  and  Mark  have  "  Gerasenes." 
In  sundry  very  ancient  manuscripts  "  Gergesenes  " 
occurs. 

The  existence  of  any  place  called  Gergesa,  how- 
ever,  is   declared    by   the   weightiest  authorities 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    377 

whom  I  have  consulted  to  be  very  questionable  ; 
and  no  such  town  is  mentioned  in  the  list  of  the 
cities  of  the  Decapolis,  in  the  territory  of  which 
(as  it  would  seem  from  Mark  v.  20)  the  transaction 
was  supposed  to  take  place.  About  Gerasa,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  hangs  no  such  doubt.  It 
was  a  large  and  important  member  of  the  group 
of  the  Decapolitan  cities.  But  Gerasa  is  more  than 
thirty  miles  distant  from  the  nearest  part  of  the 
Lake  of  Tiberias,  while  the  city  mentioned  in  the 
narative  could  not  have  been  very  far  off  the  scene 
of  the  event.  However,  as  Gerasa  was  a  very  im- 
portant Hellenic  city,  not  much  more  than  a  score 
of  miles  from  Gadara,  it  is  easily  imaginable  that 
a  locality  which  was  part  of  Decapolitan  territory 
may  have  been  spoken  of  as  belonging  to  one  of 
the  two  cities,  when  it  really  appertained  to  the 
other.  After  weighing  all  the  arguments,  no 
doubt  remains  on  my  mind  that  "  Gadarene " 
is  the  proper  reading.  At  the  period  under  con- 
sideration, Gadara  appears  to  have  been  a  good- 
sized  fortified  town,  about  two  miles  in  circum- 
ference. It  was  a  place  of  considerable  strategic 
importance,  inasmuch  as  it  lay  on  a  high  ridge  at 
the  point  of  intersection  of  the  roads  from  Tiberias, 
Scythopolis,  Damascus,  and  Gerasa.  Three  miles 
north  from  it,  where  the  Tiberias  road  descended 
into  the  valley  of  the  Hieromices,  lay  the  famous 
hot  springs  and  the  fashionable  baths  of  Amatha. 
On  the  north-east  side,  the  remains  of  the  extensive 


378    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

necropolis  of  Gadara  are  still  to  be  seen.  Innu- 
merable sepulchral  chambers  are  excavated  in  the 
limestone  cliffs,  and  many  of  them  still  contain 
sarcophaguses  of  basalt ;  while  not  a  few  are  con- 
verted into  dwellings  by  the  inhabitants  of  the 
present  village  of  Um  Keis.  The  distance  of 
Gadara  from  the  south-eastern  shore  of  the  Lake 
of  Tiberias  is  less  than  seven  miles.  The  nearest 
of  the  other  cities  of  the  Decapolis,  to  the  north,  is 
Hippos,  which  also  lay  some  seven  miles  off,  in  the 
south-eastern  corner  of  the  shore  of  the  lake.  In 
accordance  with  the  ancient  Hellenic  practice, 
that  each  city  should  be  surrounded  by  a  certain 
amount  of  territory  amenable  to  its  jurisdiction,1 
and  on  other  grounds,  it  may  be  taken  for 
certain  that  the  intermediate  country  was  divided 
between  Gadara  and  Hippos ;  and  that  the  citizens 
of  Gadara  had  free  access  to  a  port  on  the  lake. 
Hence  the  title  of  "  country  of  the  Gadarenes  " 
applied  to  the  locality  of  the  porcine  catastrophe 
becomes  easily  intelligible.  The  swine  may  well 
be  imagined  to  have  been  feeding  (as  they  do  now 
in  the  adjacent  region)  on  the  hillsides,  which  slope 
somewhat  steeply  down  to  the  lake  from  the  north- 
ern boundary  wall  of  the  valley  of  the  Hieromices 
{Nahr  Yarmuk),  about  half-way  between  the  city 


1  Thus  Josephus  (lib.  ix. )  says  that  his  rival,  Justus,  per- 
suaded the  citizens  of  Tiberias  to  "  set  the  villages  that  belonged 
to  Gadara  and  Hippos  on  fire  ;  which  villages  were  situated  on 
the  borders  of  Tiberias  and  of  the  region  ofSoythopolis." 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    379 

and  the  shore,  and  doubtless  lay  well  within  the 
territory  of  the  polis  of  Gadara. 

The  proof  that  Gadara  was,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, a  Gentile,  and  not  a  Jewish,  city  is  complete. 
The  date  and  the  occasion  of  its  foundation  are 
unknown ;  but  it  certainly  existed  in  the  -third 
century  B.C.  Antiochus  the  Great  annexed  it  to 
his  dominions  in  B.C.  198.  After  this,  during 
the  brief  revival  of  Jewish  autonomy,  Alexander 
Jannseus  took  it ;  and  for  the  first  time,  so  far  as 
the  records  go,  it  fell  under  Jewish  rule. *  From 
this  it  was  rescued  by  Pompey  (B.C.  63),  who 
rebuilt  the  city  and  incorporated  it  with  the 
province  of  Syria.  In  gratitude  to  the  Romans 
for  the  dissolution  of  a  hated  union,  the  Gadarenes 
adopted  the  Pompeian  era  on  their  coinage. 
Gadara  was  a  commercial  centre  of  some  import- 
ance, and  therefore,  it  may  be  assumed,  Jews 
settled  in  it,  as  they  settled  in  almost  all  con- 
siderable Gentile  cities.  But  a  wholly  mistaken 
estimate  of  the  magnitude  of  the  Jewish  colony 
has  been  based  upon  the  notion  that  Gabinius, 
proconsul  of  Syria  in  57-55  B.C.,  seated  one  of  the 
five  sanhedrims  in  Gadara.  Schurer  has  pointed 
out  that  what  he  really  did  was  to  lodge  one  of 
them  in  Gazara,  far  away  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Jordan.  This  is  one  of  the  many  errors  which  have 
arisen  out  of  the  confusion  of  the  names  Gadara, 
Gadara,  and  Ga7;ara. 

1  It  is  said  to  have  been  destroyed  by  its  captors. 


380    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

Augustus  made  a  present  of  Gadara  to  Herod 
the  Great,  as  an  appanage  personal  to   himself; 
and,  upon  Herod's  death,  recognising  it  to  be  a 
"  Grecian  city  "  like  Hippos  and  Gaza,1  he  trans- 
ferred it  back  to  its  former  place  in  the  province 
of  Syria.     That  Herod  made  no  effort  to  judaise 
his  temporary  possession,  but  rather  the  contrary, 
is  obvious  from  the  fact  that  the  coins  of  Gadara, 
while  under  his  rule,  bear  the  image  of  Augustus 
with  the  superscription  ]£  e/3a<TT09 — a  flying  in  the 
face  of  Jewish  prejudices  which,  even  he,  did  not 
dare   to   venture   upon   in    Judasa.     And  I  may 
remark    that,    if    my   co-trustee    of  the    British 
Museum   had   taken   the    trouble    to    visit    the 
splendid  numismatic  collection  under  our  charge, 
he  might  have  seen  two  coins  of  Gadara,  one  of 
the  time  of    Tiberius  and  the   other  of  that  of 
Titus,  each  bearing  the  effigies  of  the  emperor  on 
the  obverse  :  while  the  personified  genius  of  the 
city   is  on  the  reverse   of  the  former.     Further, 
the  well-known  works  of  De  Saulcy  and  of  Ekhel 
would   have  supplied  the  information  that,  from 
the  time   of  Augustus  to   that   of  Gordian,   the 
Gadarene  coinage  had  the  same  thoroughly  Gen- 
tile character.     Curious  that  a  city  of  "  Hebrews 
bound  by  the  Mosaic  law  "  should  tolerate  such  a 
mint ! 


1  "  But  as  to  the  Grecian  cities,  Gaza  and  Gadara  and  Hippos, 
he  cut  them  off'  from  the  kingdom  and  added  them  to  Syria." 
— Josephus,    Wars,  II.  vi.  3.    See  also  Antiquities,  XVII.  xi.  4. 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    381 

Whatever  increase  in  population  the  Ghetto  of 
Gadara  may  have  undergone,  between  B.C.  4  and 
A.D.  66,  it  nowise  affected  the  gentile  and  anti- 
judaic  character  of  the  city  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
great  war  ;  for  Josephus  tells  us  that,  immediately 
after  the  great  massacre  of  Cassarea,  the  revolted 
Jews  "  laid  waste  the  villages  of  the  Syrians  and 
their  neighbouring  cities,  Philadelphia  and  Se- 
bonitis  and  Gerasa  and  Pella  and  Scythopolis, 
and  after  them  Gadara  and  Hippos  "  ("  Wars/'  II. 
xviii.  1).  I  submit  that,  if  Gadara  had  been  a 
city  of  "  Hebrews  bound  by  the  Mosaic  law,"  the 
ravaging  of  their  territory  by  their  brother  Jews, 
in  revenge  for  the  massacre  of  the  Csesarean  Jews 
by  the  Gentile  population  of  that  place,  would 
surely  have  been  a  somewhat  unaccountable  pro- 
ceeding. But  when  we  proceed  a  little  further,  to 
the  fifth  section  of  the  chapter  in  which  this  state- 
ment occurs,  the  whole  affair  becomes  intelligible 
enough. 

Besides  this  murder  at  Scythopolis,  the  other  cities  rose  up 
against  the  Jews  that  were  among  them  :  those  of  Askelon  slew 
two  thousand  five  hundred,  and  those  of  Ptolemais  two  thousand, 
and  put  not  a  few  into  bonds  ;  those  of  Tyre  also  put  a  great 
number  to  death,  but  kept  a  greater  number  in  prison  ;  more- 
over, those  of  Hippos  and  those  of  Gadara  did  the  like,  while 
;hey  put  to  death  the  boldest  of  the  Jews,  but  kept  those  of 
whom  they  were  most  afraid  in  custody  ;  as  did  the  rest  of  the 
cities  of  Syria  according  as  they  every  one  either  hated  them  or 
were  afraid  of  them. 

Josephus  is  not  always  trustworthy,  but  he  has 


382    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HEED  OF  SWINE      x 

no  conceivable  motive  for  altering  facts  here ;  he 
speaks  of  contemporary  events,  in  which  he  him- 
self took  an  active  part,  and  he  characterises  the 
cities  in  the  way  familiar  to  him.  For  Josephus, 
Gadara  is  just  as  much  a  Gentile  city  as 
Ptolemais ;  it  was  reserved  for  his  latest  commen- 
tator, either  ignoring,  or  ignorant  of,  all  this,  to 
tell  us  that  Gadara  had  a  Hebrew  population, 
bound  by  the  Mosaic  law. 

In  the  face  of  all  this  evidence,  most  of  which 
has  been  put  before  serious  students,  with  full 
reference  to  the  needful  authorities  and  in  a 
thoroughly  judicial  manner,  by  Schiirer  in  his 
classical  work,1  one  reads  with  stupefaction  the 
statement  which  Mr.  Gladstone  has  thought  fit  to 
put  before  the  uninstructed  public : 

Some  commentators  have  alleged  the  authority  of  Josephus 
for  stating  that  Gadara  was  a  city  of  Greeks  rather  than  of  Jews, 
from  whence  it  might  be  inferred  that  to  keep  swine  was  inno- 
cent and  lawful.  This  is  not  quite  the  place  for  a  critical  ex- 
amination of  the  matter ;  but  I  have  examined  it,  and  have 
satisfied  myself  that  Josephus  gives  no  reason  whatever  to 
suppose  that  the  population  of  Gadara,  and  still  less  (if  less  may 
be)  the  population  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  least  of  all  the 
swine-herding  or  lower  portion  of  that  population,  were  other 
than  Hebrews  bound  by  the  Mosaic  law.     (Pp.  373-4.) 

Even  "  rapid  judgment "  cannot  be  pleaded  in 
excuse  for  this  surprising  statement,  because  a 
"  Note  on  the  Gadarene  miracle  "  is  added  (in  a 
special   appendix),   in   which  the   references   are 

1  Geschichte  desj  dischen  Vollccs  im  Zeitalter  Christi,  18S6-90. 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    383 

given  to  the  passages  of  Josephus,  by  the  im- 
proved interpretation  of  which,  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  thns  contrived  to  satisfy  himself  of  the  thing 
which  is  not.  One  of  these  is  "  Antiquities  "  XVII, 
xiii.  4,  in  which  section,  I  regret  to  say,  I  can  find 
no  mention  of  Gadara.  In  "  Antiquities,"  XVII.  xi. 
4,  however,  there  is  a  passage  which  would  appear 
to  be  that  which  Mr.  Gladstone  means ;  and  I  will 
give  it  in  full,  although  I  have  already  cited  part 
of  it: 

There  were  also  certain  of  the  cities  which  paid  tribute  to 
Archelaus ;  Strato's  tower,  and  Sebaste,  with  Joppa  and  Jeru- 
salem ;  for,  as  to  Gaza,  Gadara,  and  Hippos,  they  were  Grecian 
cities,  which  Csesar  separated  from  his  government,  and  added 
them  to  the  province  of  Syria. 

That  is  to  say,  Augustus  simply  restored  the  state 
of  things  which  existed  before  he  gave  Gadara, 
then  certainly  a  Gentile  city,  lying  outside  Judaea, 
to  Herod  as  a  mark  of  great  personal  favour.  Yet 
Mr.  Gladstone  can  gravely  tell  those  who  are  not 
in  a  position  to  check  his  statements : 

The  sense  seems  to  be,  not  that  these  cities  were  inhabited  by 
a  Greek  population,  but  that  they  had  politically  been  taken  out 
of  Judsea  and  added  to  Syria,  which  I  presume  was  classified  as 
simply  Hellenic,  a  portion  of  the  great  Greek  empire  erected  by 
Alexander.     (Pp.  295-6.) 

Mr.  Gladstone's  next  reference  is  to  the  "  Wars," 
III.  vii.  1 : 

So  Vespasian  marched  to  the  city  Gail  a!  a,  an  1  took  it  upon 
the  first  onset,  because  he  1'oui?  1  it  destitute  of  a  considerable 
140 


384    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

number  of  men  grown  up  fit  for  war.  He  then  came  into  it, 
and  slew  all  the  youth,  the  Romans  having  no  mercy  on  any  age 
whatsoever  ;  and  this  was  done  out  of  the  hatred  they  bore  the 
nation,  and  because  of  the  iniquity  they  had  been  guilty  of  in 
the  affair  of  Cestius. 

Obviously,  then,  Gadara  was  an  ultra-Jewish 
city.  Q.E.D.  But  a  student  trained  in  the  use 
of  weapons  of  precision,  rather  than  in  that  of 
rhetorical  tomahawks,  has  had  many  and  painful 
warnings  to  look  well  about  him,  before  trusting  an 
argument  to  the  mercies  of  a  passage,  the  context 
of  which  he  has  not  carefully  considered.  If  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  not  been  too  much  in  a  hurry  to 
turn  his  imaginary  prize  to  account — if  he  had 
paused  just  to  look  at  the  preceding  chapter  of 
Josephus — he  would  have  discovered  that  his 
much  haste  meant  very  little  speed.  He  would 
have  found  ("  Wars,"  III.  vi.  2)  that  Yespasian 
marched  from  his  base,  the  port  of  Ptolemais 
(Acre),  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  into 
Galilee ;  and,  having  dealt  with  the  so-called 
"  Gadara,"  was  minded  to  finish  with  Jutapata, 
a  strong  place  about  fourteen  miles  south-east  of 
Ptolemais,  into  which  Josephus,  who  at  first  had 
fled  to  Tiberias,  eventually  threw  himself — ■ 
Vespasian  arriving  before  Jotapata  "  the  very 
next  day."  Now,  if  any  one  will  take  a  decent 
map  of  Ancient  Palestine  in  hand,  he  will  see  that 
Jotapata,  as  I  have  said,  lies  about  fourteen  miles 
in  a   straight  line   east-south-east   of   Ptolemais, 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    385 

while  a  certain  town,  "Gabara"  (which  was  also 
held  by  the  Jews),  is  situated,  about  the  same 
distance,  to  the  east  of  that  port.  Nothing  can  be 
more  obvious  than  that  Vespasian,  wishing  to 
advance  from  Ptolemais  into  Galilee,  could  not 
afford  to  leave  these  strongholds  in  the  possession 
of  the  enemy ;  and,  as  Gabara  would  lie  on  his 
left  flank  when  he  moved  to  Jotapata,  he  took 
that  city,  whence  his  communications  with  his 
base  could  easily  be  threatened,  first.  It  might 
really  have  been  fair  evidence  of  demoniac  posses- 
sion, if  the  best  general  of  Rome  had  marched 
forty  odd  miles,  as  the  crow  flies,  through  hostile 
Galilee,  to  take  a  city  (which,  moreover,  had  just 
tried  to  abolish  its  Jewish  population)  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Jordan ;  and  then  marched  back 
again  to  a  place  fourteen  miles  off  his  starting- 
point.1  One  would  think  that  the  most  careless 
of  readers  must  be  startled  by  this  incongruity 
into  inquiring  whether  there  might  not  be  some- 
thing wrong  with  the  text ;  and,  if  he  had  done  so, 
he  would  have  easily  discovered  that  since  the 
time  of  Reland,  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  careful 
scholars  have  read  Gabara  for  Garfara.1 

Once  more,  I  venture  to  point  out  that  training 

1  If  William  the  Conqueror,  after  fighting  the  battle  of 
Hastings,  had  marched  to  rapture  Chichester  and  then  returned 
to  assault  Rye,  being  all  the  while  anxious  to  reach  London,  his 
proceedings  woul  d  not  have  been  more  eccentric  than  Mr.  Glad- 
stone must  imagine  those  of  Vespasian  were. 

-  See  Reland,  Palestina  (1714),  t.  ii.  p.  771.  Also  Robinson, 
Later  Biblical  Hesca?xhes(l85Q),  p.  87  note. 


386    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

in  the  use  of  the  weapons  of  precision  of  science 
may  have  its  value  in  historical  studies,  if  only  in 
preventing  the  occurrence  of  droll  blunders  in 
geography. 

In  the  third  citation  ("  Wars,"  IV.  vii.)  Josephus 
tells  us  that  Vespasian  marched  against "  Gadara," 
which  he  calls  the  metropolis  of  Persea  (it  was 
possibly  the  seat  of  a  common  festival  of  the 
Decapolitan  cities),  and  entered  it,  without  oppo- 
sition, the  wealthy  and  powerful  citizens  having 
opened  negotiations  with  him  without  the  know- 
ledge of  an  opposite  party,  who, "  as  being  inferior 
in  number  to  their  enemies,  who  were  within  the 
city,  and  seeing  the  Romans  very  near  the  city," 
resolved  to  fly.  Before  doing  so,  however,  they, 
after  a  fashion  unfortunately  too  common  among 
the  Zealots,  murdered  and  shockingly  mutilated 
Dolesus,  a  man  of  the  first  rank,  who  had  pro- 
moted the  embassy  to  Vespasian ;  and  then  "  ran 
out  of  the  city."  Hereupon,  "the  people  of 
Gadara  "  (surely  not  this  time  "  Hebrews  bound 
by  the  Mosaic  law  ")  received  Vespasian  with  joy- 
ful acclamations,  voluntarily  pulled  down  their 
wall,  so  that  the  city  could  not  in  future  be  used 
as  a  fortress  by  the  Jews,  and  accepted  a  Roman 
garrison  for  their  future  protection.  Granting 
that  this  Gadara  really  is  the  city  of  the 
Gadarenes,  the  reference,  without  citation,  to  the 
passage,  in  support  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  contention 
seems  rather  remarkable.     Taken  in  conjunction 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HEKD  OF  SWINE    387 

with  the  shortly  antecedent  ravaging  of  the 
Gadarene  territory  by  the  Jews,  in  fact,  better 
proof  could  hardly  be  expected  of  the  real  state  of 
the  case ;  namely,  that  the  population  of  Gadara 
(and  notably  the  wealthy  and  respectable  part 
of  it)  was  thoroughly  Hellenic ;  though,  as  in 
Caesarea  and  elsewhere  among  the  Palestinian 
cities,  the  rabble  contained  a  considerable  body  of 
fanatical  Jews,  whose  reckless  ferocity  made  them, 
even  though  a  mere  minority  of  the  population,  a 
standing  danger  to  the  city. 

Thus  Mr.  Gladstone's  conclusion  from  his  study 
of  Josephus,  that  the  population  of  Gadara  were 
"  Hebrews  bound  by  the  Mosaic  law,"  turns  out  to 
depend  upon  nothing  better  than  a  marvellously 
complete  misinterpretation  of  what  that  author 
says,  combined  with  equally  marvellous  geogra- 
phical misunderstandings,  long  since  exposed 
and  rectified ;  while  the  positive  evidence  that 
Gadara,  like  other  cities  of  the  Decapolis,  was 
thoroughly  Hellenic  in  organisation,  and  essenti- 
ally Gentile  in  population,  is  overwhelming. 

And,  that  being  the  fact  of  the  matter,  patent 
to  all  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  enquire  about 
what  has  been  said  about  it,  however  obscure  to 
those  who  merely  talk  of  so  doing,  the  thesis  that 
the  Gadarene  swineherds,  or  owners,  were  Jews 
violating  the  Mosaic  law  shows  itself  to  be  an 
empty  and  most  unfortunate  guess.  But  really, 
whether  they  that  kept  the  swine  were  Jews,  or 


388    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

whether  they  were  Gentiles,  is  a  consideration 
which  has  no  relevance  whatever  to  my  case.  The 
legal  provisions,  which  alone  had  authority  over 
an  inhabitant  of  the  country  of  the  Gadarenes, 
were  the  Gentile  laws  sanctioned  by  the  Roman 
suzerain  of  the  province  of  Syria,  just  as  the  only 
law,  which  has  authority  in  England,  is  that  re- 
cognised by  the  sovereign  Legislature.  Jewish 
communities  in  England  may  have  their  private 
code,  as  they  doubtless  had  in  Gadara.  But  an 
English  magistrate,  if  called  upon  to  enforce  their 
peculiar  laws,  would  dismiss  the  complainants 
from  the  judgment  seat,  let  us  hope  with  more 
politeness  than  Gallio  did  in  a  like  case,  but  quite 
as  firmly.  Moreover,  in  the  matter  of  keeping 
pigs,  we  may  be  quite  certain  that  Gadarene  law 
left  everybody  free  to  do  as  he  please^  indeed 
encouraged  the  practice  rather  than  otherwise. 
Not  only  was  pork  one  of  the  commonest  and  one 
of  the  most  favourite  articles  of  Roman  diet ;  but, 
to  both  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  pig  was  a  sacri- 
ficial animal  of  high  importance.  Sucking  pigs 
played  an  important  part  in  Hellenic  purificatory 
rites  ;  and  everybody  knows  the  significance  of  the 
Roman  suovetaurilia,  depicted  on  so  many  bas- 
reliefs. 

Under  these  circumstances,  only  the  extreme 
need  of  a  despairing  "  reconciler "  drowning  in  a 
3ea  of  adverse  facts,  can  explain  the  catching  at 
such  a  poor  straw  as  the  reckless  guess  that  the 


X      KEEPEKS  OF  THE  HEED  OF  SWINE    389 

swineherds  of  the  "  country  of  the  Gadarenes " 
were  erring  Jews,  doing  a  little  clandestine  busi- 
ness on  their  own  account.  The  endeavour  to 
justify  the  asserted  destruction  of  the  swine  by  the 
analogy  of  breaking  open  a  cask  of  smuggled 
spirits,  and  wasting  their  contents  on  the  ground, 
is  curiously  unfortunate.  Does  Mr.  Gladstone 
mean  to  suggest  that  a  Frenchman  landing  at 
Dover,  and  coming  upon  a  cask  of  smuggled  brandy 
in  the  course  of  a  stroll  along  the  cliffs,  has  the 
right  to  break  it  open  and  waste  its  contents  on 
the  ground  ?  Yet  the  party  of  Galileans  who, 
according  to  the  narrative,  landed  and  took  a  walk 
on  the  Gadarene  territory,  were  as  much  foreigners 
in  the  Decapolis  as  Frenchmen  would  be  at  Dover. 
Herod  Antipas,  their  sovereign,  had  no  jurisdic- 
tion in  the  Decapolis— they  were  strangers  and 
aliens,  with  no  more  right  to  interfere  with  a  pig- 
keeping  Hebrew,  than  I  have  a  right  to  interfere 
with  an  English  professor  of  the  Israelitic  faith,  if 
I  see  a  slice  of  ham  on  his  plate.  According  to 
the  law  of  the  country  in  which  these  Galilean 
foreigners  found  themselves,  men  might  keep  pigs 
if  they  pleased.  If  the  men  who  kept  them  were 
Jews,  it  might  be  permissible  for  the  strangers  to 
inform  the  religious  authority  acknowledged  by  the 
Jews  of  Gadara;  but  to  interfere  themselves,  in  such 
a  matter,  was  a  step  devoid  of  either  moral  or  legal 
justification. 

Suppose  a  modern  English  Sabbatarian  fanatic, 


390    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

who  believes,  on  the  strength  of  his  interpretation 
of  the  fourth  commandment,  that  it  is  a  deadly  sin 
to  work  on  the  "  Lord's  Day,"  sees  a  fellow  Puritan 
yielding  to  the  temptation  of  getting  in  his  harvest 
on  a  fine  Sunday  morning — is  the  former  justified 
in  setting  fire  to  the  latter's  corn  ?  Would  not 
an  English  court  of  justice  speedily  teach  him 
better  ? 

In  truth,  the  government  which  permits  private 
persons,  on  any  pretext  (especially  pious  and 
patriotic  pretexts),  to  take  the  law  into  their  own 
hands,  fails  in  the  performance  of  the  primary 
duties  of  all  governments ;  while  those  who  set 
the  example  of  such  acts,  or  who  approve  them,  or 
who  fail  to  disapprove  them,  are  doing  their  best 
to  dissolve  civil  society  :  they  are  compassers  of 
illegality  and  fautors  of  immorality. 

I  fully  understand  that  Mr.  Gladstone  may  not 
see  the  matter  in  this  light.  He  may  possibly 
consider  that  the  union  of  Gadara  with  the 
Decapolis,by  Augustus,  was  a  "blackguard  "  trans- 
action, which  deprived  Hellenic  Gadarene  law  of 
all  moral  force  ;  and  that  it  was  quite  proper  for  a 
Jewish  Galilean,  going  back  to  the  time  when  the 
land  of  the  Girgashites  was  given  to  his  ancestors, 
some  1500  years  before,  to  act,  as  if  the  state  of 
things  which  ought  to  obtain,  in  territory  which 
traditionally,  at  any  rate,  belonged  to  his  fore- 
fathers, did  really  exist.  And,  that  being  so,  I 
can  only  say  I  do  not  agree  with  him,  but  leave 


X      KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE    391 

the  matter  to  the  appreciation  of  those  of  our 
countrymen,  happily  not  yet  the  minority,  who 
believe  that  the  first  condition  of  enduring  liberty 
is  obedience  to  the  law  of  the  land. 

The  end  of  the  month  drawing  nigh,  I  thought 
it  well  to  send  away  the  manuscript  of  the  fore- 
going pages  yesterday,  leaving  open,  in  my  own 
mind,  the  possibility  of  adding  a  succinct  charac- 
terisation of  Mr.  Gladstone's  controversial  methods 
as  illustrated  therein.  This  morning,  however,  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  reading  a  speech  which  I 
think  must  satisfy  the  requirements  of  the  most 
fastidious  of  controversial  artists  ;  and  there  occurs 
in  it  so  concise,  yet  so  complete,  a  delineation  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  way  of  dealing  with  disputed 
questions  of  another  kind,  that  no  poor  effort  of 
mine  could  better  it  as  a  description  of  the  aspect 
which  his  treatment  of  scientific,  historical,  and 
critical  questions  presents  to  me. 

The  smallest  examination  would  have  told  a  man  of  his  capa- 
city and  of  his  experience  that  he  was  uttering  the  grossest 
exaggerations,  that  he  was  basing  arguments  upon  the  slightest 
hypotheses,  and  that  his  discussions  only  had  to  be  critically 
examiued  by  the  most  careless  critic  in  order  to  show  their 
intrinsic  hollowness. 

Those  who  have  followed  me  through  this  paper 
will  hardly  dispute  the  justice  of  this  judgment, 
severe  as  it  is.     But  the   Chief   Secretary    for 


392    KEEPERS  OF  THE  HERD  OF  SWINE      x 

Ireland  has  science  in  the  blood;  and  has  the 
advantage  of  a  natural,  as  well  as  a  highly 
cultivated,  aptitude  for  the  use  of  methods  of 
precisiou  in  investigation,  and  for  the  exact 
enunciation  of  the  results  thereby  obtained. 


XI 

ILLUSTRATIONS    OF   MR   GLADSTONE'S 
CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS 

[1891] 

The  series  of  essays,  in  defence  of  the  historical 
accuracy  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Scriptures, 
contributed  by  Mr.  Gladstone  to  "  Good  Words," 
having  been  revised  and  enlarged  by  their  author, 
appeared  last  year  as  a  separate  volume,  under 
the  somewhat  defiant  title  of  "  The  Impregnable 
Rock  of  Holy  Scripture." 

The  last  of  these  Essays,  entitled  "  Conclusion," 
contains  an  attack,  or  rather  several  attacks, 
couched  in  language  which  certainly  does  not  err 
upon  the  side  of  moderation  or  of  courtesy,  upon 
statements  and  opinions  of  mine.  One  of  these 
assaults  is  a  deliberately  devised  attempt,  not 
merely  to  rouse  the  theological  prejudices  in- 
grained in  the  majority  of  Mr.  Gladsone's  readers, 
but  to  hold  me  up  as  a  person  who  has  endeavoured 
to  besmirch  the  personal  character  of  the  object  of 
their  veneration.      For  Mr.  Gladstone  asserts  that 


394       PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS  xi 

I  have  undertaken  to  try  "  the  character  of  our 
Lord  "  (p.  268) ;  and  he  tells  the  many  who  are,  as 
I  think  unfortunately,  predisposed  to  place  im- 
plicit credit  in  his  assertions,  that  it  has  been 
reserved  for  me  to  discover  that  Jesus  "was  no 
better  than  a  law-breaker  and  an  evil-doer!" 
(p.  269). 

It  was  exti  emely  easy  for  me  to  prove,  as  I  did 
in  the  pages  of  this  Review  last  December,  that, 
under  the  most  favourable  interpretation,  this 
amazing  declaration  must  be  ascribed  to  extreme 
confusion  of  thought.  And,  by  bringing  an 
abundance  of  good-will  to  the  consideration  of  the 
subject,  I  have  now  convinced  myself  that  it  is 
right  for  me  to  admit  that  a  person  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's intellectual  acuteness  really  did  mistake 
the  reprobation  of  the  course  of  conduct  ascribed 
to  Jesus,  in  a  story  of  which  I  expressly  say  I  do 
not  believe  a  word,  for  an  attack  on  his  character 
and  a  declaration  that  he  was  "  no  better  than  a 
law-breaker,  and  an  evil-doer."  At  any  rate,  so  far 
as  I  can  see,  this  is  what  Mr.  Gladstone  wished 
to  be  believed  when  he  wrote  the  following 
passage : — 

I  must,  however,  in  passing,  make  the  confession  that  I  did 
not  state  with  accuracj7-,  as  I  ought  to  have  done,  the  precise 
form  of  the  accusation.  I  treated  it  as  an  imputation  on  the 
action  of  our  Lord  ;  he  replies  that  it  is  only  an  imputation  on 
the  narrative  of  three  evangelists  respecting  Him.  The  differ- 
ence, from  his  point  of  view,  is  probably  material,  and  I  there- 
fore regret  that  I  overlooked  it.1 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  February  1891,  pp.  339-40. 


XI  PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       395 

Considering  the  gravity  of  the  error  which  is 
here  admitted,  the  fashion  of  the  withdrawal 
appears  more  singular  than  admirable.  From  my 
"  point  of  view " — not  from  Mr.  Gladstone's 
apparently — the  little  discrepancy  between  the 
facts  and  Mr.  Gladstone's  carefully  offensive 
travesty  of  them  is  "  probably  "  (only  "  probably  ") 
material.  However,  as  Mr  Gladstone  concludes 
with  an  official  expression  of  regret  for  his  error, 
it  is  my  business  to  return  an  equally  official  ex- 
pression of  gratitude  for  the  attenuated  reparation 
with  which  I  am  favoured. 

Having  cleared  this  specimen  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
controversial  method  out  of  the  way,  I  may 
proceed  to  the  next  assault,  that  on  a  passage  in 
an  article  on  Agnosticism  ("  Nineteenth  Century," 
February  1889),  published  two  years  ago.  I  there 
said,  in  referring  to  the  Gadarene  story,  "  Every- 
thing I  know  of  law  and  justice  convinces  me 
that  the  wanton  destruction  of  other  people's 
property  is  a  misdemeanour  of  evil  example." 
On  this,  Mr.  Gladstone,  continuing  his  candid  and 
urbane  observations,  remarks  ( '  Impregnable 
Rock,"  p.  273)  that,  "  Exercising  his  rapid  judg- 
ment on  the  text,"  and  "  not  inquiring  what 
anybody  else  had  known  or  said  about  it,"  I  had 
missed  a  point  in  support  of  that  "accusation 
against  our  Lord  "  which  he  has  now  been  con- 
strained to  admit  I  never  made. 

The  "point  "  in  question  is  that  "  Gadara  was  a 


396       PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS  xi 

city  of  Greeks  rather  than  of  Jews,  from  whence 
it  might  be  inferred  that  to  keep  swine  was 
innocent  and  lawful."  I  conceive  that  I  have 
abundantly  proved  that  Gadara  answered  exactly 
to  the  description  here  given  of  it ;  and  I  shall 
show,  by  and  by,  that  Mr.  Gladstone  has  used 
language  which,  to  my  mind,  involves  the  admission 
that  the  authorities  of  the  city  were  not  Jews. 
But  I  have  also  taken  a  good  deal  of  pains  to 
show  that  the  question  thus  raised  is  of  no 
importance  in  relation  to  the  main  issue.1  If 
Gadara  was,  as  I  maintain  it  was,  a  city  of  the 
Decapolis,  Hellenistic  in  constitution  and  con- 
taining a  predominantly  Gentile  population,  my 
case  is  superabundantly  fortified.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  hypothesis  that  Gadara  was  under 
Jewish  government,  which  Mr.  Gladstone  seems 
sometimes  to  defend  and  sometimes  to  give  up, 
were  accepted,  my  case  would  be  nowise  weakened. 
At  any  rate,  Gadara  was  not  included  within  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  tetrach  of  Galilee  ;  if  it  had 
been,  the  Galileans  who  crossed  over  the  lake  to 


1  Neither  is  it  of  any  consequence  whether  the  locality  of  the 
supposed  miracle  was  Gadara,  or  Gerasa,  or  Gergesa.  But  I  may 
say  that  I  was  well  acquainted  with  Origen's  opinion  respecting 
Gergesa.  It  is  fully  discussed  and  rejected  in  Riehm's  Hand- 
ivbrterbuch.  In  Kitto's  Biblical  Cyclopaedia  (ii.  p.  51)  Professor 
Porter  remarks  that  Origen  merely  "conjecture*"  that  Gergesa 
was  indicated  ;  and  he  adds,  "  Now,  in  a  question  of  this  kind 
conjectures  cannot  be  admitted.  We  must  implicitly  follow  the 
most  ancient  and  creditable  testimony,  which  clearly  pronounces 
in  favour  of  Tadaprjuwu.  This  reading  is  adopted  by  Tischendorf, 
Alford,  and  Trcgelles."  •  < 


XI  PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS       397 

Gadara  had  no  official  status  ;  and  they  had  no 
more  civil  right  to  punish  law-breakers  than  any 
other  strangers. 

In  my  turn,  however,  I  may  remark  that  there 
is  a  "  point "  which  appears  to  have  escaped  Mr. 
Gladstone's  notice.  And  that  is  somewhat  un- 
fortunate, because  his  whole  argument  turns  upon 
it.  Mr.  Gladstone  assumes,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
that  pig-keeping  was  an  offence  against  the  "  Law 
of  Moses  " ;  and,  therefore,  that  Jews  who  kept 
pigs  were  as  much  liable  to  legal  pains  and 
penalties  as  Englishmen  who  smuggle  brandy 
('*  Impregnable  Rock,"  p.  274). 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  according  to  the 
Law,  as  it  is  defined  in  the  Pentateuch,  the  pig 
was  an  "unclean"  animal,  and  that  pork  was 
a  forbidden  article  of  diet.  Moreover,  since  pigs 
are  hardly  likely  to  be  kept  for  the  mere  love  of 
those  unsavoury  animals,  pig-owning,  or  swine- 
herding,  must  have  been,  and  evidently  was 
regarded  as  a  suspicious  and  degrading  occupation 
by  strict  Jews,  in  the  first  century  A.D.  But  I 
should  like  to  know  on  what  provision  of  the 
Mosaic  Law,  as  it  is  laid  down  in  the  Pentateuch, 
Mr.  Gladstone  bases  the  assumption,  which  is 
essential  to  his  case,  that  the  possession  of  pigs 
and  the  calling  of  a  swineherd  were  actually 
illegal.  The  inquiry  was  put  to  me  the  other 
day  ;  and,  as  I  could  not  answer  it,  I  turned  up 
the    article     "Schwein"    in    Riehm's    standard 


398       PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL    METHODS  xi 

"  Handworterbuch,"  for  help  out  of  my  difficulty ; 
but  unfortunately  without  success.  After  speaking 
of  the  martyrdom  which  the  Jews,  under  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,  preferred  to  eating  pork,  the  writer 
proceeds  : — 

It  may  be,  nevertheless,  that  the  practice  of  keeping  pigs  may 
have  found  its  way  into  Palestine  in  the  Grseco-Roman  time, 
in  consequence  of  the  great  increase  of  the  non-Jewish  popula- 
tion ;  yet  there  is  no  evidence  of  it  in  the  New  Testament ; 
the  great  herd  of  swine,  2,000  in  number,  mentioned  in  the 
narrative  of  the  possessed,  was  feeding  in  the  territory  of 
Gtadara,  which  belonged  to  the  Decapolis  ;  and  the  prodigal 
son  became  a  swineherd  with  the  native  of  a  far  country  into 
which  he  had  wandered ;  in  neither  of  these  cases  is  there 
reason  for  thinking  that  the  possessors  of  these  herds  were 
Jews.1 

Having  failed  in  my  search,  so  far,  I  took  up 
the  next  work  of  reference  at  hand,  Kitto's 
"Cyclopaedia"  (vol.  iii.  1876).  There,  under 
"  Swine,"  the  writer,  Colonel  Hamilton  Smith, 
seemed  at  first  to  give  me  what  I  wanted,  as  he 
says  that  swine  "  appear  to  have  been  repeatedly 
introduced  and  reared  by  the  Hebrew  people,2 
notwithstanding  the  strong  prohibition  in  the  Law 
of  Moses   (Is.  lxv.  4)."     But,  in  the  first  place, 

1  I  may  call  attention,  in  passing,  to  the  fact  that  this  author- 
ity, at  any  rate,  has  no  sort  of  doubt  of  the  fact  that  Jewish 
Law  did  not  rule  in  Gadara  (indeed,  under  the  head  of  "  Gadara/' 
in  the  same  work,  it  is  expivssly  stated  that  the  population  of 
the  place  consisted  "predominantly  of  heathens"),  and  that  he 
scouts  the  notion  that  the  Gadarene  swineherds  were  Jews. 

2  The  evidence  adduced,  so  far  as  post-exile  times  are  con- 
cerned, appears  to  me  insufficient  to  prove  this  assertion. 


XI  PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       399 

Isaiah's  writings  form  no  part  of  the  "Law  of 
Moses " ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  people 
denounced  by  the  prophet  in  this  passage  are 
neither  the  possessors  of  pigs,  nor  swineherds,  but 
these  "  which  eat  swine's  flesh  and  broth  of 
abominable  things  is  in  their  vessels."  And  when, 
in  despair,  I  turned  to  the  provisions  of  the  Law 
itself,  my  difficulty  was  not  cleared  up.  Leviticus 
xi.  8  (Revised  Version)  says,  in  reference  to  the 
pig  and  other  unclean  animals  :  "  Of  their  flesh  ye 
shall  not  eat,  and  their  carcasses  ye  shall  not 
touch."  In  the  revised  version  of  Deuteronomy, 
xiv.  8,  the  words  of  the  prohibition  are  identical, 
and  a  skilful  refiner  might  possibly  satisfy  himself, 
even  if  he  satisfied  nobody  else,  that  "  carcase  " 
means  the  body  of  a  live  animal  as  well  as  a  dead 
one  ;  and  that,  since  swineherds  could  hardly  avoid 
cont  ict  with  their  charges,  their  calling  was  im- 
plicitly forbidden. 1  Unfortunately,  the  authorised 
version  expressly  says  "  dead  carcase  " ;  and  thus 
the  most  rabbinically  minded  of  reconcilers  might 
find  his  casuistry  foiled  by  that  great  source  of 
surprises,  the  "original  Hebrew."  That  such 
check  is  at  any  rate  possible,  is  clear  from  the  fact 
that  the  legal  uncleanness  of  some  animals,  as 
food,  did  not  interfere  with  their  being  lawfully 
possessed,   cared    for,    and   sold   by   Jews.      The 

1  Even  Leviticus  xi.  26,  cited  without  reference  to  the  con- 
text, will  not  serve  the  purpose ;  because  the  swine  is  "  cloven- 
footed  "  (Lev.  xi  7). 
141 


400        PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS  xi 

provisions  for  the  ransoming  of  unclean  beasts 
(Lev.  xxvii.  27)  and  for  the  redemption  of  their 
sucklings  (Numbers  xviii.  15)  sufficiently  prove  this. 
As  the  late  Dr.  Kalisch  has  observed  in  his  c  Com- 
mentary "  on  Leviticus,  part  ii.  p.  129,  note  : — 

Though  asses  and  horses,  camels  and  dogs,  were  kept  by  the 
Israelites,  they  were,  to  a  certain  extent,  associated  with  the 
notion  of  impurity  ;  they  might  be  turned  to  profitable  account 
by  their  labour  or  otherwise,  but  in  respect  to  food  they  were  an 
abomination. 

The  same  learned  commentator  (loc.  cit.  p.  88) 
proves  that  the  Talmudists  forbade  the  rearing  of 
pigs  by  Jews,  unconditionally  and  everywhere ; 
and  even  included  it  under  the  same  ban  as  the 
study  of  Greek  philosophy,  "  since  both  alike  were 
considered  to  lead  to  the  desertion  of  the  Jewish 
faith."  It  is  very  possible,  indeed  probable,  that 
the  Pharisees  of  the  fourth  decade  of  our  first 
century  took  as  strong  a  view  of  pig-keeping  as 
did  their  spiritual  descendants.  But,  for  all  that, 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  practice  was  illegal. 
The  stricter  Jews  could  not  have  despised  and 
hated  swineherds  more  than  they  did  publicans  ; 
but,  so  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no  provision  in  the 
Law  against  the  practice  of  the  calling  of  a  tax- 
gatherer  by  a  Jew.  The  publican  was  in  fact 
very  much  in  the  position  of  an  Irish  process- 
server  at  the  present  day — more,  rather  than  less, 
despised  and  hated  on  account  of  the  perfect 
legality  of   his  occupation.      Except  for    certain 


XI  PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       401 

sacrificial  purposes,  pigs  were  held  in  such 
abhorrence  by  the  ancient  Egyptians,  that 
swineherds  were  not  permitted  to  enter  a  temple, 
or  to  intermarry  with  other  castes ;  and  any  one 
who  had  touched  a  pig,  even  accidentally,  was 
unclean.  But  these  very  regulations  prove  that 
pig-keeping  was  not  illegal;  it  merely  involved 
certain  civil  and  religious  disabilities.  For  the 
Jews,  dogs  were  typically  "  unclean  animals  ;  but, 
when  that  eminently  pious  Hebrew,  Tobit,  "  went 
forth"  with  the  angel  "the  young  man's  dog" 
went"  with  them  "  (Tobit  v.  16)  without  apparent 
remonstrance  from  the  celestial  guide.  I  really 
do  not  see  how  an  appeal  to  the  Law  could  have 
justified  any  one  in  drowning  Tobit's  dog,  on  the 
ground  that  his  master  was  keeping  and  feeding 
an  animal  quite  as  "  unclean  "  as  any  pig. 
Certainly  the  excellent  Raguel  must  have  failed  to 
see  the  harm  of  dog-keeping,  for  we  are  told  that, 
on  the  travellers'  return  homewards,  "  the  dog 
went  after  them  "  (xi.  4). 

Until  better  light  than  I  have  been  able  to 
obtain  is  thrown  upon  the  subject,  therefore,  it  is 
obvious  that  Mr.  Gladstone's  argumentative  house 
has  been  built  upon  an  extremely  slippery 
quicksand  ;  perhaps  even  has  no  foundation  at  alL 

Yet  another  "  point "  does  not  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  is  so  much  shocked 
that  I  attach  no  overwhelming  weight  to  the 
assertions  contained  in  the  synoptic  Gospels,  even 


402       PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS  xi 

when  all  three  concur.  These  Gospels  agree  in 
stating,  in  the  most  express,  and  to  some  extent 
verbally  identical,  terms,  that  the  devils  entered 
the  pigs  at  their  own  request,1  and  the  third 
Gospel  (viii.  31)  tells  us  what  the  motive  of  the 
demons  was  in  asking  the  singular  boon  :  "  They 
intreated  him  that  he  would  not  command  them 
to  depart  into  the  abyss."  From  this,  it  would 
seem  that  the  devils  thought  to  exchange  the 
heavy  punishment  of  transportation  to  the  abyss 
for  the  lighter  penalty  of  imprisonment  in  swine. 
And  some  commentators,  more  ingenious  than 
respectful  to  the  supposed  chief  actor  in  this 
extraordinary  fable,  have  dwelt,  with  satisfaction, 
upon  the  very  unpleasant  quarter  of  an  hour 
which  the  evil  spirits  must  have  had,  when  the 
headlong  rush  of  their  maddened  tenements 
convinced  them  how  completely  they  were  taken 
in.  In  the  whole  story,  there  is  not  one  solitary 
hint  that  the  destruction  of  the  pigs  was  intended 
as  a  punishment  of  their  owners,  or  of  the 
swineherds.  On  the  contrary,  the  concurrent 
testimony  of  the  three  narratives  is  to  the  effect 
that  the  catastrophe  was  the  consequence  of 
diabolic  suggestion.     And,  indeed,  no  source  could 


1  1st  Gospel :  "And  the  devils  besought  Mm,  saying,  If  Thou 
cast  us  out  send  us  away  into  the  herd  of  swine."  2d  Gospel : 
"They  besought  Mm,  saying,  Send  us  into  the  swine."  3d 
Gospel :  ' '  They  intreated  Mm  that  he  would  give  them  leave  to 
enter  into  them." 


XI  PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       403 

be  more  appropriate  for  an  act  of  such  manifest 
injustice  and  illegality. 

I  can  but  marvel  that  modern  defenders  of  the 
faith  should  not  be  glad  of  any  reasonable  excuse 
for  getting  rid  of  a  story  which,  if  it  had  been 
invented  by  Voltaire,  would  have  justly  let  loose 
floods  of  orthodox  indignation. 

Thus,  the  hypothesis,  to  which  Mr.  Gladstone  so 
fondly  clings,  finds  no  support  in  the  provisions  of 
the  "  Law  of  Moses  "  as  that  law  is  defined  in  the 
Pentateuch ;  while  it  is  wholly  inconsistent  with 
the  concurrent  testimony  of  the  synoptic  Gospels, 
to  which  Mr.  Gladstone  attaches  so  much  weight. 
In  my  judgment,  it  is  directly  contrary  to  every- 
thing which  profane  history  tells  us  about  the 
constitution  and  the  population  of  the  city  of 
Gadara ;  and  it  commits  those  who  accept  it  to  a 
story  which,  if  it  were  true,  would  implicate 
the  founder  of  Christianity  in  an  illegal  and  in- 
equitable act. 

Such  being  the  case,  I  consider  myself  excused 
from  following  Mr  Gladstone  through  all  the 
meanderings  of  his  late  attempt  to  extricate 
himself  from  the  maze  of  historical  and  exegetical 
difficulties  in  which  he  is  entangled.  I  content 
myself  with  assuring  those  who,  with  my  paper 
(not  Mr.  Gladstone's  version  of  my  arguments)  in 
hand,  consult  the  original  authorities,  that  they 
will  find  full  justification  for  every  statement  1 


404       PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS  xi 

have  made.  But  in  order  to  dispose  those  who 
cannot,  or  will  not,  take  that  trouble,  to  believe 
that  the  proverbial  blindness  of  one  that  judges  his 
own  cause  plays  no  part  in  inducing  me  to  speak 
thus  decidedly,  I  beg  their  attention  to  the 
following  examination,  which  shall  be  as  brief  as  I 
can  make  it,  of  the  seven  propositions  in  which 
Mr.  Gladstone  professes  to  give  a  faithful  summary 
of  my  "  errors." 

When,  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, the  Holy  See  declared  that  certain  proposi- 
tions contained  in  the  works  of  Bishop  Jansen 
were  heretical,  the  Jansenists  of  Port  Royal 
replied  that,  while  they  were  ready  to  defer  to 
the  Papal  authority  about  questions  of  faith  and 
morals,  they  must  be  permitted  to  judge  about 
questions  of  fact  for  themselves  ;  and  that,  really, 
the  condemned  propositions  were  not  to  be  found 
in  Jan  sen's  writings.  As  everybody  knows,  His 
Holiness  and  the  Grand  Monarque  replied  to  this, 
surely  not  unreasonable,  plea  after  the  manner  of 
Lord  Peter  in  the  "  Tale  of  a  Tub."  It  is,  there- 
fore, not  without  some  apprehension  of  meeting 
with  a  similar  fate,  that  I  put  in  a  like  plea 
against  Mr.  Gladstone's  Bull.  The  seven  proposi- 
tions declared  to  be  false  and  condemnable,  in 
that  kindly  and  gentle  way  which  so  pleasantly 
compares  with  the  authoritative  style  of  the 
Vatican  (No.  5  more  particularly),  may  or  may 
not  be  true.     But  they  are  not  to  be  found  in 


XI  PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS       405 

anything  I  have  written.  And  some  of  them 
diametrically  contravene  that  which  I  have 
written.     I  proceed  to  prove  my  assertions. 

Prop.  1.  Throughout  the  paper  he  confounds  to- 
gether what  I  had  distinguished,  namely,  the  city 
of  Gadara  and  the  vicinage  attaclied  to  it,  not  as  a 
mere  pom  cerium,  hut  as  a  rural  district. 

In  my  judgment,  this  statement  is  devoid  of 
foundation.  In  my  paper  on  "  The  Keepers  of 
the  Herd  of  Swine  "  I  point  out,  at  some  length, 
that,  "in  accordance  with  the  ancient  Hellenic 
practice,"  each  city  of  the  Decapolis  must  have 
been  "  surrounded  by  a  certain  amount  of  territory 
amenable  to  its  jurisdiction  "  :  and,  to  enforce  this 
conclusion,  I  quote  what  Josephus  says  about  the 
"  villages  that  belonged  to  Gadara  and  Hippos." 
As  I  understand  the  term  pomerium  or  pomairium} 
it  means  the  space  which,  according  to  Roman 
custom,  was  kept  free  from  buildings,  immediately 
within  and  without  the  walls  of  a  city ;  and  which 
defined  the  range  of  the  auspicia  urlana.  The 
conception  of  a  pcmcerium  as  a  "  vicinage  attached 
to"  a  city,  appears  to  be  something  quite  novel 
and  original.  But  then,  to  be  sure,  I  do  not  know 
how  many  senses  Mr.  Gladstone  may  attach  to  the 
word  "  vicinage." 

Whether  Gadara  had  a  pomcerium,  in  the 
proper  technical  sense,  or  not,  is  a  point  on  which 
I  offer  no  opinion.     But  that  the  city  had  a  very 

1  See  Marquardt,  Romische  Staatsverwaltung,  Bd.  III.  p.  408. 


406       PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS  xi 

considerable  "rural  district"  attached  to  it  and 
notwithstanding  its  distinctness,  amenable  to  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Gentile  municipal  authorities, 
is  one  of  the  main  points  of  my  case. 

Prop.  2.  He  more  fatally  confounds  the  local  civil 
government  and  its  following y  including,  perhaps, 
the  whole  wealthy  class  and  those  attached  to  it,  with 
the  ethnical  character  of  the  general  population. 

Having  survived  confusion  No.  1,  which  turns 
out  not  to  be  on  my  side,  I  am  now  confronted  in 
No.  2  with  a  "  more  fatal "  error — and  so  it  is,  if 
there  be  degrees  of  fatality  ;  but,  again,  it  is  Mr. 
Gladstone's  and  not  mine.  It  would  appear,  from 
this  proposition  (about  the  grammatical  interpre- 
tation of  which,  however,  I  admit  there  are  diffi- 
culties), that  Mr.  Gladstone  holds  that  the  "  local 
civil  government  and  its  following  among  the 
wealthy,"  were  ethnically  different  from  the 
"general  population."  On  p.  348,  he  further 
admits  that  the  "  wealthy  and  the  local  governing 
power "  were  friendly  to  the  Romans.  Are  we 
then  to  suppose  that  it  was  the  persons  of  Jewish 
"ethnical  character"  who  favoured  the  Romans, 
while  those  of  Gentile  "  ethnical  character  "  were 
opposed  to  them  ?  But,  if  that  supposition  is 
absurd,  the  only  alternative  is  that  the  local  civil 
government  was  ethnically  Gentile.  This  is 
exactly  my  contention. 

At  pp.  379  to  391  of  the  essay  on  "The 
Keepers   of  the   Herd   of  Swine "  I   have  fully 


XI  PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       407 

discussed  the  question  of  the  ethnical  character 
of  the  general  population.  I  have  shown  that, 
according  to  Josephus,  who  surely  ought  to  have 
known,  Gadara  was  as  much  a  Gentile  city  as 
Ptolemais ;  I  have  proved  that  he  includes  Gadara 
amongst  the  cities  "  that  rose  up  against  the  Jews 
that  were  amongst  them,"  which  is  a  pretty 
definite  expression  of  his  belief  that  the  "  ethnical 
character  of  the  general  population  "  was  Gentile. 
There  is  no  question  here  of  Jews  of  the  Eoman 
party  fighting  with  Jews  of  the  Zealot  party,  as 
Mr.  Gladstone  suggests.  It  is  the  non- Jewish 
and  anti-Jewish  general  population  which  rises 
up  against  the  Jews  who  had  settled  "  among 
them." 

Prop.  3.  His  one  item  of  direct  evidence  as  to  the 
Gentile  character  of  the  city  refers  only  to  the  former 
and  not  to  the  latter. 

More  fatal  still.  But,  once  more,  not  to  me.  I 
adduce  not  one,  but  a  variety  of  "  items  "  in  proof 
of  the  non- Judaic  character  of  the  population  of 
Gadara :  the  evidence  of  history ;  that  of  the 
coinage  of  the  city ;  the  direct  testimony  of 
Josephus,  just  cited- — to  mention  no  others.  I 
repeat,  if  the  wealthy  people-  and  those  connected 
with  them — the  "classes'"  and  the  "hangers  on" 
of  Mr  Gladstone's  well-known  taxonomy — were, 
as  he  appears  to  admit  they  were,  Gentiles ;  if  the 
"  civil  government "  of  the  city  was  in  their  hands, 
as  the  coinage  proves  it  was  \  what  becomes  of 


408       PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL  METHODS  xi 

Mr.  Gladstone's  original  proposition  in  "  The 
Impregnable  Rock  of  Scripture  "  that  "  the  popu- 
lation of  Gadara,  and  still  less  (if  less  may  be)  the 
population  of  the  neighbourhood,"  were  "  Hebrews 
bound  by  the  Mosaic  law "  ?  And  what  is  the 
importance  of  estimating  the  precise  proportion  of 
Hebrews  who  may  have  resided,  either  in  the  city 
of  Gadara  or  in  its  dependent  territory,  when,  as 
Mr.  Gladstone  now  seems  to  admit  (I  am  careful 
to  say  "  seems "),  the  government,  and  conse- 
quently the  law,  which  ruled  in  that  territory  and 
defined  civil  right  and  wrong  was  Gentile  and  not 
Judaic  ?  But  perhaps  Mr.  Gladstone  is  prepared 
to  maintain  that  the  Gentile  "  local  civil  govern- 
ment "  of  a  city  of  the  Decapolis  administered 
Jewish  Law ;  and  showed  their  respect  for  it, 
more  particularly,  by  stamping  their  coinage  with 
effigies  of  the  Emperors. 

In  point  of  fact,  in  his  haste  to  attribute  to  me 
errors  which  I  have  not  committed,  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  given  away  his  case. 

Prop.  4.  He  fatally  confounds  the  question  of 
'political  party  with  those  of  nationality  and  of 
religion,  and  assumes  that  those  who  took  the  side 
of  Rome  in  the  factions  that  prevailed  could  not  he 
subject  to  the  Mosaic  Law. 

It  would  seem  that  I  have  a  feline  tenacity  of 
life  ;  once  more,  a  "  fatal  error."  But  Mr.  Glad- 
stone has  forgotten  an  excellent  rule  of  contro- 
versy ;   say  what  is  true,  of  course,  but  mind  that 


XI  PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       409 

it  is  decently  probable.  Now  it  is  not  decently 
probable,  hardly  indeed  conceivable,  that  any  one 
who  has  read  Josephns,  or  any  other  historian  of 
the  Jewish  war,  should  be  unaware  that  there 
were  Jews  (of  whom  Josephus  himself  wa,s  one) 
who  "'  Romanised "  and,  more  or  less  openly, 
opjDosed  the  war  party.  But,  however  that  may 
be,  I  assert  that  Mr.  Gladstone  neither  has 
produced,  nor  can  produce,  a  passage  of  my 
writing  which  affords  the  slightest  foundation  for 
this  particular  article  of  his  indictment. 

Prop.  5.  His  examination  of  the  text  of 
Joscpkus  is  alike  one-sided,  inadequate,  and 
erroneous. 

Easy  to  say,  hard  to  prove.  So  long  as  the 
authorities  whom  I  have  cited  are  on  my  side,  I 
do  not  know  why  this  singularly  temperate  and 
convincing  dictum  should  trouble  me.  I  have  yet 
to  become  acquainted  with  Mr.  Gladstone's  claims 
to  speak  with  an  authority  equal  to  that  of  scholars 
of  the  rank  of  Schurer,  whose  obviously  just  and 
necessary  emendations  he  so  unceremoniously 
pooh-poohs. 

Prop.  6.  Finally,  he  sets  aside,  on  grounds  not 
critical  or  historical,  but  partly  subjective,  the 
primary  historical  testimony  on  the  subject,  namely, 
that  of  the  three  Synoptic  Evangelists,  who  write  as 
contemporaries  and  deal  directly  with  the  subject, 
neither  of  which  is  done  by  any  other  authority. 

Really  this  is  too  much  !     The  fact  is,  as  anybody 


410        PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS  xi 

can  see  who  will  turn  to  rny  article  of  February 
1889  [VII.  suprd\,  out  of  which  all  this  discussion 
has  arisen,  that  the  arguments  upon  which  I  rest  the 
strength  of  my  case  touching  the  swine-miracle,  are 
exactly  "  historical  "  and"  critical."  Expressly,  and 
in  words  that  cannot  be  misunderstood,  I  refuse  to 
rest  on  what  Mr.  Gladstone  calls  "  subjective " 
evidence.  I  abstain  from  denying  the  possibility 
of  the  Gadarene  occurrence,  and  I  even  go  so  far  as 
to  speak  of  some  physical  analogies  to  possession. 
In  fact,  my  quondam  opponent,  Dr.  Wace, 
shrewdly,  but  quite  fairly,  made  the  most  of  these 
admissions ;  and  stated  that  I  had  removed  the 
only  "  consideration  which  would  have  been  a 
serious  obstacle  "  in  the  way  of  his  belief  in  the 
Gadarene  story. 1 

So  far  from  setting  aside  the  authority  of  the 
synoptics  on  "  subjective  "  grounds,  I  have  taken 
a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  show  that  my  non-belief 
in  the  story  is  based  upon  what  appears  to  me  to 
be  evident ;  firstly,  that  the  accounts  of  the  three 
synoptic  Gospels  are  not  independent,  but  are 
founded  upon  a  common  source ;  secondly,  that, 
even  if  the  story  of  the  common  tradition  pro- 
ceeded from  a  contemporary,  it  would  still  be 
worthy  of  very  little  credit,  seeing  the  manner  in 
which  the  legends  about  mediaeval  miracles  have 
been    propounded    by   contemporaries.      And   in 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  March  1889  (p.  362). 


XI  PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       411 

illustration  of  this  position  I  wrote  a  special  essay 
about  the  miracles  reported  by  Eginhard. 1 

In  truth,  one  need  go  no  further  than  Mr. 
Gladstone's  sixth  proposition  to  be  convinced  that 
contemporary  testimony,  even  of  well-known  and 
distinguished  persons,  may  be  but  a  very  frail  reed 
for  the  support  of  the  historian,  when  theological 
prepossession  blinds  the  witness.2 

Prop.  7.  And  he  treats  the  entire  question,  in  the 
narrowed  form  in  which  it  arises  upon  secular  testi- 
mony, as  if  it  were  capable  of  a  solution  so  clear  and 

1  "The  Yalue  of  Witness  to  the  Miraculous."  Nineteenth 
Century,  March  18S9. 

2  I  cannot  ask  the  Editor  of  this  Review  to  reprint  pages  of 
an  old  article, — but  the  following  passages  sufficiently  illustrate 
the  extent  and  the  character  of  the  discrepancy  between  the 
facts  of  the  case  and  Mr.  Gladstone's  account  of  them  : — 

"Now,  in  the  Gadarene  affair,  I  do  not  think  I  am 
unreasonably  sceptical  if  I  say  that  the  existence  of  demons  who 
can  be  transferred  from  a  man  to  a  pig  does  thus  contravene 
probability.  Let  me  be  perfectly  candid.  I  admit  I  have  no  a, 
priori  objection  to  offer.  ...  1  declare,  as  plainly  as  1  can, 
that  1  am  unable  to  show  cause  why  these  transferable  devils 
should  not  exist."  .  .  .  ("Agnosticism,"  Nineteenth  Century, 
1889,  p.  177). 

"  What  then  do  we  know  about  the  originator,  or  originators, 
of  this  groundwork — of  that  threefold  tradition  which  all  three 
witnesses  (in  Paley's  phrase)  agree  upon — that  we  should  allow 
their  mere  statements  to  outweigh  the  counter  arguments  of 
humanity,  of  common  sense,  of  exact  science,  and  to  imperil 
the  respect  which  all  would  be  glad  to  be  able  to  render  to  their 
Master?"  (ibid.  p.  175). 

I  then  go  on  through  a  couple  of  pages  to  discuss  the  value  of 
the  evidence  of  the  synoptics  on  critical  and  historical  grounds. 
Mr.  Gladstone  cites  the  essay  from  which  these  passages  are 
taken,  whence  I  suppose  he  has  read  it ;  though  it  may  be  that 
he  shares  the  impatience  of  Cardinal  Manning  where  my  writings 
are  concerned.  Such  impatience  will  account  for,  though  it  will 
not  excuse,  his  sixth  proposition. 


412       PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL    METHODS  xi 

summary  as  to  warrant  the  use  of  the  extremest 
weapons  of  controversy  against  these  who  presume  to 
differ  from  him. 

The  six  heretical  propositions  which  have  gone 
before  are  enunciated  with  sufficient  clearness  to 
enable  me  to  prove,  without  any  difficulty,  that, 
whosesoever  they  are,  they  are  not  mine.  But 
number  seven,  I  confess,  is  too  hard  for  me.  I 
cannot  undertake  to  contradict  that  which  I  do 
not  understand. 

What  is  the  "  entire  question  "  which  "  arises  " 
in  a  "  narrowed  form  "  upon  "  secular  testimony  "  ? 
After  much  guessing,  I  am  fain  to  give  up  the 
conundrum.  The  "  question  "  may  be  the  owner- 
ship of  the  pigs;  or  the  ethnological  character  of 
the  Gadarenes  ;  or  the  propriety  of  meddling  with 
other  people's  property  without  legal  warrant. 
And  each  of  these  questions  might  be  so 
"  narrowed  "  when  it  arose  on  "  secular  testimony  " 
that  I  should  not  know  where  I  was.  So  I  am 
silent  on  this  part  of  the  proposition. 

But  I  do  dimly  discern,  in  the  latter  moiety  of 
this  mysterious  paragraph,  a  reproof  of  that  use  of 
"  the  extremest  weapons  of  controversy  "  which  is 
attributed  to  me.  Upon  which  I  have  to  observe 
that  I  guide  myself,  in  such  matters,  very  much  by 
the  maxim  of  a  great  statesman,  "  Do  ut  des."  If 
Mr.  Gladstone  objects  to  the  employment  of  such 
weapons  in  defence,  he  would  do  well  to  abstain 
from    them   in    attack.      He   should    not    frame 


XI  PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL    METHODS       413 

charges  which,  he  has,  afterwards,  to  admit  are 
erroneous,  in  language  of  carefully  calculated 
offensiveness  ("Impregnable  Rock,"  pp.  269-70);  he 
should  not  assume  that  persons  with  whom  he 
disagrees  are  so  recklessly  unconscientious  as  to 
evade  the  trouble  of  inquiring  what  has  been  said 
or  known  about  a  grave  question  ("  Impregnable 
Rock/'  p.  273) ;  he  should  not  qualify  the  results  of 
careful  thought  as  "hand-over-head  reasoning" 
("  Impregnable  Rock,"  p.  274) ;  he  should  not,  as  in 
the  extraordinary  propositions  which  I  have  just 
analysed,  make  assertions  respecting  his  opponent's 
position  and  arguments  which  are  contradicted  by 
the  plainest  facts. 

Persons  who,  like  myself,  have  spent  their 
lives  outside  the  political  world,  yet  take  a  mild 
and  philosophical  concern  in  what  goes  on  in  it, 
often  find  it  difficult  to  understand  what  our 
neighbours  call  the  psychological  moment  of  this 
or  that  party  leader,  and  are,  occasionally,  loth  to 
believe  in  the  seeming  conditions  of  certain  kinds 
of  success.  And  when  some  chieftain,  famous  in 
political  warfare,  adventures  into  the  region  of 
letters  or  of  science,  in  full  confidence  that  the 
methods  which  have  brought  fame  and  honour  in 
his  own  province  will  answer  there,  he  is  apt  to 
forget  that  he  will  be  judged  by  these  people,  on 
whom  rhetorical  artifices  have  long  ceased  to  take 
effect ;  and  to  whom  mere  dexterity  in  putting 


414        PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS  xi 

together  cleverly  ambiguous  phrases,  and  even  the 
great  art  of  offensive  misrepresentation,  are  un- 
speakably wearisome.  And,  if  that  weariness 
finds  its  expression  in  sarcasm,  the  offender  really 
has  no  right  to  cry  out.  Assuredly,  ridicule  is  no 
test  of  truth,  but  it  is  the  righteous  meed  of  some 
kinds  of  error.  Nor  ought  the  attempt  to  con- 
found the  expression  of  a  revolted  sense  of  fair 
dealing  with  arrogant  impatience  of  contradiction, 
to  restrain  those  to  whom  "  the  extreme  weapons 
of  controversy "  come  handy  from  using  them. 
The  function  of  police  in  the  intellectual,  if  not  in 
the  civil,  economy  may  sometimes  be  legitimately 
discharged  by  volunteers. 

Some  time  ago,  in  one  of  the  many  criticisms 
with  which  I  am  favoured,  I  met  with  the  remark 
that,  at  our  time  of  life,  Mr.  Gladstone  and  I  might 
be  better  occupied  than  in  fighting  over  the 
Gadarene  pigs.  And,  if  these  too  famous  swine 
were  the  only  parties  to  the  suit,  I,  for  my  part, 
should  fully  admit  the  justice  of  the  rebuke.  But, 
under  the  beneficent  rule  of  the  Court  of 
Chancery,  in  former  times,  it  was  not  uncommon, 
that  a  quarrel  about  a  few  perches  of  worthless 
land,  ended  in  the  ruin  of  ancient  families  and  the 
engulfing  of  great  estates ;  and  I  think  that  our 
admonisher  failed  to  observe  the  analogy — to 
note  the  momentous  consequences  of  the  judgment 


XI  PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       415 

which  may  be  awarded  in  the  present  apparently  in- 
significant action  in  re  the  swineherds  of  Gadara. 

The  immediate  effect  of  such  judgment  will  be 
the  decision  of  the  question,  whether  the  men  of 
the  nineteenth  century  are  to  adopt  the  demon- 
ology  of  the  men  of  the  first  century,  as  divinely 
revealed  truth,  or  to  reject  it,  as  degrading  falsity. 
The  reverend  Principal  of  King's  College  has 
delivered  his  judgment  in  perfectly  clear  and 
candid  terms.  Two  years  since,  Dr.  Wace  said 
that  he  believed  the  story  as  it  stands ;  and  con- 
sequently he  holds,  as  a  part  of  divine  revelation, 
that  the  spiritual  world  comprises  devils,  who, 
under  certain  circumstances,  may  enter  men  and 
be  transferred  from  them  to  four-footed  beasts. 
For  the  distinguished  Anglican  Divine  and.  Biblical 
scholar,  that  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  teachings 
respecting  the  spiritual  world  which  we  owe  to  the 
founder  of  Christianity.  It  is  an  inseparable  part 
of  that  Christian  orthodoxy  which,  if  a  man 
rejects,  he  is  to  be  considered  and  called  an 
"infidel."  According  to  the  ordinary  rules  of 
interpretation  of  language,  Mr.  Gladstone  must 
hold  the  same  view. 

If  antiquity  and  universality  are  valid  tests  of 
the  truth  of  any  belief,  no  doubt  this  is  one  of  the 
beliefs  so  certified.  There  are  no  known  savages, 
nor  people  sunk  in  the  ignorance  of  partial  civili- 
sation, who  do  not  hold  them.  The  great  majority 
142 


416        PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS  xi 

of  Christians  have  held  them  and  still  hold  them. 
Moreover  the  oldest  records  we  possess  of  the 
early  conceptions  of  mankind  in  Egypt  and  in 
Mesopotamia  prove  that  exactly  such  demonology, 
as  is  implied  in  the  Gadarene  story,  formed  the 
substratum,  and,  among  the  early  Accadians, 
apparently  the  greater  part,  of  their  supposed 
knowledge  of  the  spiritual  world.  M.  Lenormant's 
profoundly  interesting  work  on  Babylonian  magic 
and  the  magical  texts  given  in  the  Appendix  to 
Professor  Sayce's  "  Hibbert  Lectures  "  leave  no 
doubt  on  this  head.  They  prove  that  the  doctrine 
of  possession,  and  even  the  particular  case  of  pig 
possession,1  were  firmly  believed  in  by  the  Egyp- 
tians and  the  Mesopotamians  before  the  tribes  of 
Israel  invaded  Palestine.  And  it  is  evident  that 
these  beliefs,  from  some  time  after  the  exile 
and  probably  much  earlier,  completely  interpene- 
trated the  Jewish  mind,  and  thus  became  insep- 
arably interwoven  with  the  fabric  of  the  synoptic 
Gospels. 

Therefore,  behind  the  question  of  the  acceptance 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  oldest  heathen  demonology 
as  part  of  the  fundamental  beliefs  of  Christianity, 
there   lies  the  question  of  the  credibility  of  the 

1  The  wicked,  before  being  annihilated,  returned  to  the  world 
to  disturb  men  ;  they  entered  into  the  body  of  unclean  animals, 
"often  that  of  a  pig,  as  on  the  Sarcophagus  of  Seti  J.  in  the 
Soane  Museum."— Lenormant,  Chaldean  Magic,  p.  88,  Editorial 
Note. 


XI  PECULIAR  CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       417 

Gospels,  and  of  their  claim  to  act  as  our  instruct- 
ors, outside  that  ethical  province  in  which  they 
appeal  to  the  consciousness  of  all  thoughtful  men. 
And  still,  behind  this  problem,  there  lies  another 
—  how  far  do  these  ancient  records  give  a  sure 
foundation  to  the  prodigious  fabric  of  Christian 
dogma,  which  has  been  built  upon  them  by  the 
continuous  labours  of  speculative  theologians, 
during  eighteen  centuries  ? 

I  submit  that  there  are  few  questions  before 
the  men  of  the  rising  generation,  on  the  answer 
to  which  the  future  hangs  more  fatally,  than  this. 
We  are  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  Whether  the 
•twentieth  century  shall  see  a  recrudescence  of  the 
superstitions  of  mediaeval  papistry,  or  whether  it 
shall  witness  the  severance  of  the  living  body  of 
the  ethical  ideal  of  prophetic  Israel  from  the  car- 
case, foul  with  savage  superstitions  and  cankered 
with  false  philosophy,  to  which  the  theologians 
have  bound  it,  turns  upon  their  final  judgment  of 
the  Gadarene  tale. 

The  gravity  of  the  problems  ultimately  involved 
in  the  discussion  of  the  legend  of  Gadara  will,  I 
hope,  excuse  a  persistence  in  returning  to  the  sub- 
ject, to  which  I  should  not  have  been  moved  by 
merely  personal  considerations. 

With  respect  to  the  diluvial  invective  which 
overflowed  thirty-three  pages  of  the  "  Nineteen  th 


418       PECULIAK   CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS  xi 

Century  "  last  January,  I  doubt  not  that  it  has  a 
catastrophic  importance  in  the  estimation  of  its 
author.  I,  on  the  other  hand,  may  be  permitted 
to  regard  it  as  a  mere  spate ;  noisy  and  threatening 
while  it  lasted,  but  forgotten  almost  as  soon  as  it 
was  over.  Without  my  help,  it  will  be  judged  by 
every  instructed  and  clear-headed  reader;  and 
that  is  fortunate,  because,  were  aid  necessary,  I 
have  cogent  reasons  for  withholding  it. 

In  an  article  characterised  by  the  same  qualities 
of  thought  and  diction,  entitled  "  A  Great  Lesson," 
which  appeared  in  the  "  Nineteenth  Century  "  for 
September  1887,  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  firstly,  charged 
the  whole  body  of  men  of  science,  interested  in  the 
question,  with  having  conspired  to  ignore  certain 
criticisms  of  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  of  the  origin  of 
coral  reefs  ;  and,  secondly,  he  asserted  that  some 
person  unnamed  had  "  actually  induced  "  Mr.  John 
Murray  to  delay  the  publication  of  his  views  on 
that  subject  "  for  two  years." 

It  was  easy  for  me  and  for  others  to  prove  that 
the  first  statement  was  not  only,  to  use  the  Duke 
of  Argyll's  favourite  expression,  "  contrary  to  fact," 
but  that  it  was  without  any  foundation  whatever. 
The  second  statement  rested  on  the  Duke  of 
Argyll's  personal  authority.  All  I  could  do  was  to 
demand  the  production  of  the  evidence  for  it.  Up 
to  the  present  time,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  evidence 
has  not  made  its  appearance ;  nor  has  there  been 


XI  PECULIAR   CONTROVERSIAL   METHODS       419 

any  withdrawal  of,  or  apology  for,  the  erroneous 
charge. 

Under  these  circumstances  most  people  will 
understand  why  the  Duke  of  Argyll  may  feel 
quite  secure  of  having  the  battle  all  to  himself^ 
whenever  it  pleases  him  to  attack  me. 

[See  the  note  at  the  end  of  "  Hasisadra's 
Adventure"  (vol  iv.  p.  283).  The  discussion  on 
coral  reefs,  at  the  meeting  of  the  British  Associa- 
tion this  year,  proves  that  Mr.  Darwin's  views  are 
defended  now,  as  strongly  as  in  1891,  by  highly 
competent  authorities.    October  25,  1893.] 


END    OF  VOL.   V 


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